The Palestinian Authority wants the United Nations Security Council to vote this month on whether it can join the world body as a full member, the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations told Reuters on Monday, a move that could be blocked by the United States. , an ally of Israel.
Riyad Mansour, who has permanent observer status at the United Nations, made the Palestinian plans public as the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants nears the six-month mark in Gaza and Israel expands settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Mansour told Reuters the aim was for the Security Council to make a decision on the issue at a ministerial meeting on the Middle East on April 18. According to him, the vote has not yet been scheduled. The monitor said the 2011 Palestinian request for full membership remains pending because the 15-member council never made a formal decision.
“The intention is to put the request to a vote in the Security Council this month,” he added.
In addition to the pressure to end the war, global pressure is mounting to resume efforts for a two-state solution – with an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The war began after Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli records. Israel responded by imposing a total siege on Gaza and then launching a military attack that killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
UN APPROVAL
An application to become a full member of the United Nations must be approved by the Security Council – a body where the United States can exercise its veto power – and then by at least two-thirds of the 193 members of the General Assembly.
The U.S. mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israeli UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said the Palestinian Authority had not met the criteria required to become a state in its 2011 bid to become a full member of the United Nations and “has only drifted away from the goals it would have had to reach since then”.
“Moreover, anyone who supports the recognition of a Palestinian state at this time not only rewards terrorism, but also supports unilateral measures contradictory to the agreed principle of direct negotiations,” Erdan said.
A Security Council committee considered the Palestinian request for several weeks in 2011, but did not reach a unanimous position and the council never voted on a resolution to recommend Palestinian membership.
At the time, diplomats said the Palestinians did not have sufficient support in the Security Council. To be adopted, a resolution requires at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes from the United States, Russia, China, France or the United Kingdom.
Instead of pushing for a council vote, the Palestinians decided to go to the UN General Assembly to seek to become a non-member observer state. The assembly approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine in November 2012.
There has been little progress in achieving Palestinian statehood since the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the early 1990s. Obstacles also include the expansion of Israeli settlements.
Led by President Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-government in the West Bank and is Israel’s partner in the Oslo accords. In 2007, Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli settlements could undermine any practical possibility of a Palestinian state, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said last month. According to him, Israel’s transfer of its population to the occupied territories constitutes a war crime.
US President Joe Biden’s administration said in February that Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank was inconsistent with international law, signaling a return to long-standing US policy on the issue, which had been reversed by US government Donald Trump .
Source: Terra
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