US vetoes widely supported UN resolution backing UN membership for Palestine
- In Reports
- 12:22 PM, Apr 19, 2024
- Myind Staff
On Thursday, the United States vetoed a widely supported United Nations resolution that aimed to grant full UN membership to Palestine. The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 12 in favour, the United States opposed and two abstentions, from the United Kingdom and Switzerland.
The resolution proposed that the 193-member General Assembly, where there are no vetoes, endorse Palestine's accession as the 194th member of the United Nations. Given that 140 countries have already acknowledged the state of Palestine, its admission would likely have been approved.
This marks the second attempt by Palestine to attain full membership status in the United Nations, coinciding with the ongoing seven-month-long conflict in Gaza. The strong support the Palestinians received reflects not only the growing number of countries recognising their statehood but almost certainly the global support for Palestinians facing a humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Gaza.
Before the vote, U.S. deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said the United States has “been very clear consistently that premature actions in New York — even with the best intentions — will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people.”
Palestinian membership “needs to be the outcome of the negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians,” U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood said. It “is something that would flow from the result of those negotiations.”
Anything that gets in the way “makes it more difficult to have those negotiations” and doesn’t help move toward a two-state solution where Israel and Palestine live side by side in peace, which “we all want,” Wood told reporters.
Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the council after the vote, “The fact that this resolution did not pass will not break our will and it will not defeat our determination.”
“We will not stop in our effort,” he said. “The state of Palestine is inevitable. It is real. Perhaps they see it as far away, but we see it as near.”
In 2011, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas submitted the Palestinian Authority's application for U.N. membership to then-Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. However, this initial attempt fell short as the Palestinians did not garner the necessary minimum support of nine out of the Security Council's 15 members.
Following that, the Palestinians turned to the General Assembly and secured a status elevation from a U.N. observer to a non-member observer state in November 2012, with support from more than a two-thirds majority. This move allowed the Palestinian territories to participate in the U.N. and other global bodies, such as the International Criminal Court.
In early April, the Palestinians revived their pursuit of U.N. membership, supported by the 140 nations that have formally recognized Palestine as an independent state.
Ziad Abu Amr, special representative of the Palestinian president, said adopting the resolution would grant the Palestinian people hope “for a decent life within an independent state."
He said such "hope has dissipated over the past years because of the intransigence of the Israeli government that has rejected this solution publicly and blatantly, especially following the destructive war against the Gaza Strip.”
He stressed to the Security Council that it won’t be an alternative “for serious negotiations that are time-bound to implement the two-state solution” and U.N. resolutions and to resolve pending issues between Palestinians and Israelis.
Amr questioned the United States and other nations opposed to Palestinian U.N. membership, asking how such a move could jeopardise prospects for peace or undermine international peace and security, especially considering these countries already recognise Israel and endorsed its U.N. membership.
“To grant the state of Palestine full membership will be an important pillar to achieve peace in our region, because the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and its different dimensions now go beyond the borders of Palestine and Israel and impact other regions in the Middle East and around the world,” the Palestinian envoy said.
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been at a standstill for years, compounded by the dominance of hard-line factions within Israel's right-wing government who adamantly oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan called the resolution “disconnected to the reality on the ground” and warned that it “will cause only destruction for years to come and harm any chance for future dialogue.”
Six months after the October 7th assault on southern Israel by Hamas, which held control in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of 1,200 individuals in what was described as "the most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust," he accused the Security Council of attempting to grant statehood to the perpetrators of these horrific acts.
Israel's military offensive in response has killed over 32,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, and destroyed much of the territory, which speaker after speaker denounced Thursday.
Image source: AP
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