On Thursday, the United States blocked the United Nations Security Council from moving forward with the Palestinians' bid to be recognized as a full member state at the United Nations, blocking efforts by Palestinian allies to call for call the world organization to support this effort.
The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, has described the push for full membership as an attempt “to take our rightful place in the community of nations.”
However, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, on Thursday condemned the resolution presented to the Security Council as a “reward for terror.” “Sadly, the United Nations no longer cares about multilateralism,” he added. It is now committed to multi-terrorism.”
The vote had 12 votes in favor of the resolution and one – the United States – against, with two abstentions.
The Security Council has consistently called for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, an outcome that has failed to materialize in negotiations between the two sides. In Washington, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said the statehood resolution was dead on arrival.
“The United States position remains that the most expeditious path toward statehood for the Palestinian people is through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority with support from the United States and other partners.” .
The United States, along with the other four permanent members of the Council, can veto any action before the Council. On Thursday afternoon, during a high-level meeting of the Council aimed at resolving issues in the Middle East, including efforts to establish a Palestinian state, the United States, a staunch ally of Israel, used its veto. there.
The resolution called for a 15-member Security Council suggest “The State of Palestine is admitted as a member of the United Nations,” diplomats told the 193-member United Nations General Assembly. To be approved, the application needs to be approved by the Security Council with at least nine votes in favor and no veto by the United States, Britain, France, Russia or China. Then at least two-thirds of the General Assembly would have to approve it.
Israel was admitted as a full member of the United Nations in 1949. The Palestinian Authority has sought a state encompassing the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip for decades; Those territories have all been occupied or annexed by Israel. The Arab League established the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964 with the goal regulations emphasizes the right of Palestinians to self-determination and opposes the establishment of the State of Israel.
Little progress has been made toward statehood since Israel and the Palestinian Authority signed the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, establishing a peace process toward a two-state solution. In 2007, the militant group Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas and implementing limited autonomy in the occupied West Bank, from power in the Gaza Strip.
Complicating the Palestinian statehood application is the war that began when Hamas led terrorist attacks on Israel that killed some 1,200 people and prompted retaliatory Israeli attacks in Israel. Gaza, killing more than 33,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and displacing more than a million people. The conflict has spread to the occupied West Bank and neighboring countries such as Lebanon and has drawn Iran into the conflict.
