The Resolution “Determines” that a State of Palestine is Qualified for Membership in the United Nations, said Israel’s Ambassador to the United States
The Security Council should be allowed to reconsider the matter with a favorable outcome after the resolution states that Palestine is qualified for membership in the United Nations.
The United States would block the resolution if it were returned to the Council, said the spokesman for the US mission to the UN.
Zionism is a religion and voting for a Palestinian state would mean inviting a state of terror in its midst and rewarding terrorists who killed Jewish civilians with privileges, said Israel’s ambassador to the UN.
The 193-member world body approved the Arab and Palestinian-sponsored resolution by a vote of 143-9 with 25 abstentions. The United States voted against the resolution along with Israel, Argentina, and other countries.
“The U.S. is resigned to having another bad day at the U.N.,” said Richard Gowan, an expert on the United Nations for the International Crisis Group, a conflict prevention organization. But he added that the resolution “gives the Palestinians a boost without creating a breakdown over whether they are or are not now U.N. members.”
Mr. Gilad is a person. Israel’s ambassador, held up the picture of Hamas’s military leader, Yahya Sinwar, considered the architect of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, with the word “President,” and then a transparent shredder, inserting a piece of paper inside it, and said the member states were “shredding the U.N. charter.”
The ambassador from the Palestinians to the UN told the assembly before the vote that no words could capture what such loss and trauma meant for Palestinians and their families.
The vote reflected the wide global support for full membership of Palestine in the United Nations, with many countries expressing outrage at the escalating death toll in Gaza and fears of a major Israeli offensive in Rafah, a southern city where about 1.3 million Palestinians have sought refuge.
Robert Wood, the United States’ deputy ambassador, said on Friday that the United States supports Palestinians statehood, but only after direct negotiations that guarantee Israel’s security and future as a democratic Jewish state and allow Palestinians to live in peace in their own state.
The resolution “determines” that a state of Palestine is qualified for membership — dropping the original language that in the General Assembly’s judgment it is “a peace-loving state.” The Security Council’s request should be reconsidered favorably.
Mansour accused Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of preparing “to kill thousands to ensure his political survival” and aiming to destroy the Palestinian people.
Proposal for a Cutoff in the U.N. Agency Contribution to the Palestine Resilient Emergency Plan (Revised by the US Consultative Expert on the Resolution)
Three Western diplomats said that the original draft of the resolution had been changed to address concerns by the US, as well as Russia and China.
According to the diplomats, Russia and China, which are strong supporters of Palestine’s U.N. membership, were concerned that granting the rights and privileges listed in an annex could set a precedent for other would-be U.N. members — with Russia concerned about Kosovo and China about Taiwan.
Under longstanding legislation by the U.S. Congress, the United States is required to cut off funding to U.N. agencies that give full membership to a Palestinian state, which could mean a cutoff in dues and voluntary contributions to the U.N. from its largest contributor.