Israel should have been the first country to congratulate the Palestinians on their acceptace to the UN Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat
said Tuesday morning. His comments came after UNESCO accepted Palestine as the 195th
member of its organization.
Erekat told Army Radio that Israel and the Palestinians "share a land with a common history and culture."
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"Yesterday's vote was a victory for humanity, peace and the two-state solution. Israelis should open up their eyes and welcome this," Erekat stated.
The top PA official added that the Palestinians would present their
request for statehood recognition to the UN Security Council in 10 days.
Also responding to the UN cultural agency's decision, the United States froze funding to UNESCO on Monday evening.
On Monday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas had thanked all the countries that
supported its UNESCO membership bid.
“This vote is a vote for peace,”
Abbas was quoted by the PA’s news agency, Wafa, as saying.
“The vote
constitutes an international consensus to support the legitimate national rights
of our people – first and foremost the right to establish an independent
state.”
The vote is a “victory for Palestinian independence,” Abbas said.
The entire world, he added, stood with the Palestinians today.
It also
underscored the need to establish a Palestinian state as soon as possible, Abbas
said.
“This vote is not directed against anyone,” he said. “It’s meant to
support freedom and justice.”
Israel, however, warned that the UNESCO vote harmed ongoing Quartet
efforts to jump-start the peace talks, which have been stalled since October
2010.
“The Palestinian move at UNESCO, as with similar such steps with
other UN bodies, is tantamount to a rejection of the international community’s
efforts to advance the peace process,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement
it issued to the press.
It threatened to cut its ties with
UNESCO.
“The State of Israel will consider its further steps and ongoing
cooperation with the organization,” the Ministry said.
At the Knesset,
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sternly said Israel should consider cutting
all ties to the PA.
“My recommendations will be very clear,” the foreign
minister explained at an Israel Beiteinu faction meeting. “We need to weigh
cutting all ties with the Palestinian Authority.
We cannot continue to
accept unilateral measures time after time.”
The Palestinian application
for UNESCO is part of its overall strategy to unilaterally obtain statehood by
seeking UN membership both by appealing to the Security Council, which approves
all such bids, and by separately asking to join UN bodies such as UNESCO and
other international organizations.
The Security Council is expected to
vote on the issue of Palestinian UN membership later this month.
PA negotiator Nabil Sha’ath called the vote a
“victory for Palestinian rights and proof of the international community’s
recognition of our people’s right to an independent state.”
Sha’ath said
the vote would be added to a series of “political victories achieved by the
Palestinian leadership.” He said the vote highlighted the size of the crisis
facing the Israeli government.
Hamas also welcomed Monday’s vote, saying
it was an “important step toward serving the Palestinian cause and preserving
Palestinian heritage and holy sites in the face of Israeli
violations.”
Hamas said the vote also “exposed the brutality of the
occupation and the bias of the US administration in favor of the occupation and
its racist policies.”
Tovah Lazaroff, Rebecca Anna Stoil and Reuters contributed to this report
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