A screen shows the voting results during the United Nations General Assembly vote on a draft resolution that would recognize the Palestinians as qualified to become a full U.N. member, in New York City, on May 10.Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
The United Nations General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favourably.”
The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member – a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state – after the United States vetoed it in the UN Security Council last month.
The assembly adopted a resolution with 143 votes in favour and nine against – including the U.S. and Israel. Twenty-five countries abstained, including Canada. In a statement, Global Affairs Canada said that when it comes to questions about peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, Canada remains committed to a two-state solution.
”It is clear we must urgently build a credible path to achieving the two-state solution, one that gives hope to both Palestinians and Israelis that they may live side by side in peace, security, and dignity. That process cannot indefinitely delay the creation of a Palestinian state,” the statement said. “Canada is prepared to recognize the State of Palestine at the time most conducive to lasting peace, not necessarily as the last step along that path.”
The resolution “determines that the State of Palestine … should therefore be admitted to membership” and it “recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favourably.”
The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes seven months into a war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, which the UN considers to be illegal.
“We want peace, we want freedom,” Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the assembly before the vote. “A yes vote is a vote for Palestinian existence, it is not against any state. … It is an investment in peace.”
“Voting yes is the right thing to do,” he said in remarks that drew applause.
For many Israelis and Palestinians, Benjamin Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas are an obstacle to peace
Under the founding UN Charter, membership is open to “peace-loving states” that accept the obligations in that document and are able and willing to carry them out.
“As long as so many of you are ‘Jew-hating,’ you don’t really care that the Palestinians are not ‘peace-loving’,” UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan, who spoke after Mr. Mansour, told his fellow diplomats. He accused the assembly of shredding the UN Charter – as he used a small shredder to destroy a copy of the Charter while at the lectern.
“Shame on you,” Mr. Erdan said.
An application to become a full UN member first needs to be approved by the 15-member Security Council and then the General Assembly. If the measure is again voted on by the council it is likely to face the same fate: a U.S. veto.
Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told the General Assembly after the vote that unilateral measures at the UN and on the ground will not advance a two-state solution.
“Our vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood; we have been very clear that we support it and seek to advance it meaningfully. Instead, it is an acknowledgment that statehood will only come from a process that involves direct negotiations between the parties,” he said.
The United Nations has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war with neighbouring Arab states.
The General Assembly resolution adopted on Friday does give the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 – like a seat among the UN members in the assembly hall – but they will not be granted a vote in the body.
The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de-facto recognition of statehood that was granted by the UN General Assembly in 2012.
They are represented at the UN by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank. Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in Gaza in 2007. Hamas – which has a charter calling for Israel’s destruction – launched the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Mr. Erdan said on Monday that, if the General Assembly adopted the resolution, he expected Washington to cut funding to the United Nations and its institutions.
Under U.S. law, Washington cannot fund any UN organization that grants full membership to any group that does not have the “internationally recognized attributes” of statehood. The United States cut funding in 2011 for the UN cultural agency, UNESCO, after the Palestinians joined as a full member.
On Thursday, 25 Republican U.S. senators – more than half of the party’s members in the chamber – introduced a bill to tighten those restrictions and cut off funding to any entity giving rights and privileges to the Palestinians. The bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, which is controlled by President Joe Biden’s Democrats.