UNITED NATIONS –
The United States on Thursday vetoed a widely supported U.N. resolution that would have paved the way for Palestine to become a full U.N. member, a goal Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked hard to prevent.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 12 in favor, the United States against, and two abstentions, from the United Kingdom and Switzerland. US allies France, Japan and South Korea supported the resolution.
The strong support the Palestinians received reflects not only the growing number of countries recognizing their statehood, but almost certainly global support for Palestinians facing a humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Gaza, now in its seventh month.
The resolution would have recommended that the 193-member U.N. General Assembly, where there are no vetoes, approve Palestine becoming the 194th member of the United Nations. Some 140 countries have already recognized Palestine, so its admission would have been approved, probably by a much larger number of countries.
Deputy US Ambassador Robert Wood told the Security Council that the veto “does not reflect opposition to a Palestinian state but rather a recognition that it will only emerge from direct negotiations between the parties.”
The United States “has consistently been very clear that premature actions in New York – even with the best of intentions – will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people,” said State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel.
His voice breaking at times, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, told the council after the vote: “The fact that this resolution was not approved will not break our will and will not defeat our determination.”
“We will not give up our efforts,” he said. “The State of Palestine is inevitable. It is real. Maybe they see it far away, but we see it close.”
This is the second Palestinian attempt to become a full member and comes at a time when the war in Gaza has put the more than 75-year-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict center stage.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas first submitted the Palestinian Authority’s application for UN membership in 2011. It failed because the Palestinians did not obtain the minimum required support from nine of the 15 members of the Security Council.
They went to the General Assembly and managed, by a majority of more than two-thirds, to have their status changed from a UN observer state to a non-member observer state in 2012. That opened the door for the Palestinian territories to join the the UN and other international organizations. , including the International Criminal Court.
Algerian UN ambassador Amar Bendjama, the Arab representative on the council who introduced the resolution, called Palestine’s admission “a critical step toward rectifying a long-standing injustice” and said that “peace will come from inclusion of Palestine, not its exclusion.
Explaining the US veto, Wood said there are “unresolved questions” about whether Palestine meets the criteria for statehood. He noted that Hamas still wields power and influence in the Gaza Strip, which is a key part of the state envisioned by the Palestinians.
Wood emphasized that the United States’ commitment to a two-state solution, where Israel and Palestine live side by side in peace, is the only path for security for both sides and for Israel to establish relations with all of its Arab neighbors. including Saudi Arabia. .
“The United States is committed to deepening its engagement with the Palestinians and the rest of the region, not only to address the ongoing crisis in Gaza, but also to promote a political agreement that will create a path to Palestinian statehood and membership in the United Nations,” he said.
Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, reiterated commitment to a two-state solution, but said Israel believes Palestine “is a permanent strategic threat.”
“Israel will do everything possible to block the sovereignty of a Palestinian state and ensure that the Palestinian people are exiled from their homeland or remain under its occupation forever,” he said.
He asked the council and diplomats gathered in the chamber: “What will the international community do? What will you do?”
Negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians have been stalled for years, and Israel’s right-wing government is dominated by hardliners who oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.
Israeli ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan called the resolution “disconnected from the reality on the ground” and warned that it “will only cause destruction in the years to come and harm any possibility of future dialogue.”
Six months after the October 7 attack by the militant group Hamas, which controlled Gaza, and the murder of 1,200 people in “the most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” he accused the Security Council of trying to “reward the perpetrators of these atrocities with statehood.
Israel’s response military offensive has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and destroyed much of the territory, which speaker after speaker denounced on Thursday.
After the vote, Erdan thanked the United States and in particular President Joe Biden “for standing up for truth and morality in the face of hypocrisy and politics.”
He called the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank and the United States wants to take over Gaza, where Hamas still has influence, “an entity that supports terrorism.”
The Israeli ambassador to the UN referred to the requirements for UN membership: accepting the obligations of the UN Charter and being a “peace-loving” state.
“How can you seriously say that Palestinians love peace? How?” -Erdan asked. “The Palestinians are paying the terrorists, paying them to massacre us. None of their leaders condemn terrorism, nor the massacre of October 7. They call Hamas his brothers.”
Even though Palestine did not meet the criteria for UN membership, Erdan said the majority of council members supported it.
“It is very sad because your vote will only further embolden Palestinian rejection and make peace almost impossible,” he said.