The United States stopped the United Nations Security Council from granting the Palestinians full-fledged membership in the global organization of 193 member states.
“This vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood, but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties,” US Ambassador Robert Wood said after the vote.
The US was the only nation out of the 15-member UNSC to object to admitting Palestine as the 194th UN member state. Twelve UNSC nations, including France, approved the move. The United Kingdom and Switzerland abstained.
The motion failed, however, because the US is one of five permanent UNSC members with veto power, such that its “no” vote blocks the motion.
Some 139 UN member countries recognize Palestine as a state, but Security Council approval is a necessary step for membership. Already in 2012, the UN General Assembly recognized Palestine as a non-member state, a move that granted it de-facto recognition and allowed it to operate as a state within the UN, albeit one without full rights.
The Palestinian Authority pushed for full statehood recognition on Thursday, for the first time in 12 years, in a bid to maximize growing support among Western countries for unilateral Palestinian statehood in light of the Israel-Hamas war.
Although Hamas began the war with its invasion of Israel on October 7, killing over 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, international public sympathy has been with the Palestinians in Gaza in light of the high fatality count of over 33,000. Israel has said that over 13,000 of those are combatants.
Direct Talks
At the UNSC, Wood said there were “unresolved questions as to whether the applicant [the PA] meets the criteria to be considered a State.”
“We have long called on the Palestinian Authority to undertake necessary reforms to help establish the attributes of readiness for statehood and note that Hamas – a terrorist organization – is currently exerting power and influence in Gaza, an integral part of the state envisioned in this resolution.”
“The United States continues to strongly support a two-state solution. This vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood, but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties.”
Palestinian Authority Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour pushed back at Wood, stating that UN membership for his people was an “investment in peace.”
“The people of Palestine will not disappear. We will not be buried” or “erased,” he stated.
“We came to the Security Council today at an important historic moment, regionally and internationally, so that we could salvage what can be saved,” Mansour stated.
“We place before you before a historic responsibility to establish the fountains just and comprehensive peace in our region,’ he explained.
Mansour reaffirmed the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to a two-state resolution to the conflict and called for an International conference to advance a peace process for two states based on the pre-1967 lines.
“But the question remains: is there a true partner for peace in Israel?” he asked. “Is there a partner in peace with us in Israel?”
He spoke at a time when most of the Israeli government opposed Palestinian statehood.
“Israel believes that the state of Palestine is a permanent strategic threat to it and will do its best to block the sovereignty of a Palestinian state,” he said.
“It is up to you now to determine who loves peace and who is the enemy of peace?” Mansour said.
He warned that delaying UN membership would give Israel the time it needed to “annex Palestinian land will give it the immunity to evict the people [Palestinians] and kill them?”
Thanking the US for the resolution
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, thanked the United States for blocking the resolution, explaining that the PA “does not meet even the most basic criteria and “has no authority over their territory.”
The PA, he said, is a “terror-loving entity” that had a policy of issuing monthly stipends to Palestinians who have killed civilians in terror attacks.
“The Palestinian representative [Mansour] called Hamas, his brothers after the [October 7 massacre]. They don't even recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. You won't find even one Palestinian leader who will tell you that he recognizes Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state,” Erdan said.
He warned UNSC members who supported unilateral Palestinian statehood that they were emboldening the PA to reject future peace process offers, such as it had done in the past.
“Please remember this the next time that Palestinians reject another peace plan or refuse to even come to the negotiating table,” he stated.