{"id":262283,"date":"2024-05-13T12:00:37","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T11:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=262283"},"modified":"2024-05-12T06:14:29","modified_gmt":"2024-05-12T05:14:29","slug":"un-vote-was-for-palestinian-membership-not-statehood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/05\/un-vote-was-for-palestinian-membership-not-statehood\/","title":{"rendered":"UN Vote Was for Palestinian Membership, Not Statehood"},"content":{"rendered":"

10 May 2024 – In a blow to the U.S., the U.N. General Assembly voted today to give Palestine, whose statehood it has already acknowledged, full U.N. membership, forcing the U.S. into another embarrassing veto at the Security Council.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The United States will be forced into another embarrassing veto at the U.N. Security Council after the General Assembly on Friday voted overwhelmingly to ask the Council to reverse its rejection of full U.N. membership for Palestine.<\/p>\n

The Assembly voted 143 nations in favor, to just nine against, with 25 abstentions to recommend that the Security Council reconsider its decision last month not to approve full membership. It was a message in reality only to the United States, since it was the U.S. veto in the Council on April 18 that denied Palestine full membership.<\/p>\n

Joining the U.S. in the Assembly in voting against on Friday were Israel, Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Papua New Guinea. Most U.S. allies abstained but several voted in favor of membership, including Australia, Estonia, France, Japan, Norway, Spain and South Korea.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s furious ambassador, Gilad Erdan, said the U.N. was founded to prevent the kind of tyranny of the Nazis who sought to annihilate the Jewish people.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, you are doing the opposite \u2026 welcoming a terror State into its ranks,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have opened up the United Nations to modern-day Naziism. It makes me sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erdan hysterically added that the vote had \u201copened up the United Nations to modern-day Nazis, to genocidal jihadists committed to establishing an Islamic state across Israel and the region, murdering every Jewish man, woman and child.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He then held up a battery-operated, mini paper shredder and inserted the cover of the U.N. charter.<\/p>\n

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Israel\u2019s U.N ambassador shredding the cover of the U.N. charter. (U.N. Photo\/Manuel El\u00edas)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2012, the Assembly voted overwhelmingly to make Palestine an observer state, giving it only the right to speak in the Assembly.\u00a0 The resolution passed on Friday expands<\/a> Palestinian rights to include being seated alphabetically in the Assembly, having the right to submit amendments and agenda items and to be elected as officers to U.N. committees.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Full U.N. membership with voting rights can only be granted by the General Assembly after a recommendation from the Security Council. The General Assembly took action on Friday after the United States cast the lone veto against Palestinian membership at the Security Council, when ally France voted in favor and Britain abstained.<\/p>\n

The matter now goes back to the Security Council, where the U.S. said<\/a> on Friday that it will veto it again on the basis of an erroneous argument that the issue before the U.N. is statehood rather than membership.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward statehood for the Palestinian people is through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority with the support of the United States and other partners,\u201d said<\/a> Robert Wood, the U.S. deputy ambassador, after the U.S. cast its veto last month.\u00a0 \u201cWe also have long been clear that premature actions here in New York, even with the best intentions, will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em> and other<\/a> Western media also incorrectly reported that the General Assembly voted for Palestinian statehood.\u00a0 The Times<\/em> headline read: \u201cThe U.N. <\/a>General Assembly a<\/a>dopts a resolution in <\/a>support of<\/a> Palestinian statehood.\u201d<\/a> The Sydney Morning<\/em> Herald<\/em>\u2018s headline<\/a> was: \u201cAustralia joins 142 nations in backing Palestinian statehood in UN vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the resolution was only to grant full U.N. membership to Palestine. Only states can bilaterally recognize other states and 139 countries have already done so for Palestine.\u00a0 The U.S. government and Western media ignoring the legality of these 139 countries recognizing Palestine is an inheritance of colonial arrogance.<\/p>\n

In reporting for The Wall Street Journal<\/em> on the 2012 General Assembly vote to make Palestine an observer state I referred to the country as \u201cPalestine.\u201d A WSJ<\/em> editor angrily rebuked me. \u201cWe don\u2019t call it Palestine,\u201d he said.\u00a0 So the call of Wall Street Journa<\/em>l editors overrides 139 nations.<\/p>\n

The General Assembly has considered Palestine to be a state since that 2012 vote as seen in the nameplate before Palestine\u2019s U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour, seen here speaking at the Security Council last month:<\/p>\n

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Ambassador Riyad Mansour of the State of Palestine addressing the U.N. Security Council on Thursday. (U.N. Photo from U.N. TV)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Definition of a State<\/strong><\/p>\n

The U.N. can only confer membership to already existing states, and not grant statehood. Only states can recognize other states bilaterally. The U.N. General Assembly gave observer state status to the State of Palestine in 2012.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0U.N. Charter<\/a> is clear. Article 4<\/a> says that only existing states may apply for U.N. membership. It says:<\/p>\n

\u201cMembership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states<\/em> which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.\u201d [Emphasis added.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Friday\u2019s General Assembly resolution<\/a> \u201cDetermines<\/em> that the State of Palestine is qualified for membership in the United Nations in accordance with Article 4 of the Charter of the United Nations and should therefore be admitted to membership in the United Nations.\u201d \u201d<\/p>\n

The resolution doesn\u2019t say the General Assembly determines that Palestine qualifies as a state, but as a member of the U.N. because it already says it\u2019s a state, in a resolution that 143 countries voted for and only nine against. But those nine countries rule the world, according to the U.S.<\/p>\n

On the basis of the language of Article 4, the 143 countries that voted in favor on Friday consider Palestine to be a state, even if they have not formally recognized it bilaterally.<\/p>\n

France, for instance voted for full membership, although it has not yet formally recognized Palestine. However. French President Emmanuel Macron said<\/a> in February it was no longer a \u201ctaboo\u201d for France to recognize Palestinian statehood.\u00a0 The French Assembly voted in 2014 to urge the government to do so.<\/p>\n

The original text<\/a> of Friday\u2019s resolution says \u201cmembership in the United Nations is open to all peace-loving States which accept the obligations contained in the Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.\u201d\u00a0 The Associated Press reported<\/a> that the words \u201cpeace-loving\u201d were dropped from the resolution.<\/p>\n

The very act of the U.N. secretary general in 2011 accepting a Palestinian membership application was an acknowledgement from the U.N. that Palestine is already a state, as only states can apply.<\/p>\n

The definition of a state is contained in\u00a0Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention<\/a>, according to which Palestine is indeed a state: The Convention\u2019s requirements for statehood are:<\/p>\n

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