The United States has vetoed a Palestinian request to the United Nations Security Council for full UN membership, blocking the world body’s recognition of a Palestinian state.
The vote in the 15-member security council was 12 in favour, the US opposed, and two abstentions, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.
The resolution would have recommended that the 193-member General Assembly, where there are no vetoes, approve Palestine becoming the 194th member of the United Nations. Some 140 countries have already recognized the state of Palestine, so its admission would have been approved.
Associated Press reports this is the second Palestinian attempt to become a full member of the United Nations, and it comes as the war in Gaza, now in its seventh month, keeps raging.
Before the vote, diplomats said the US mission had been trying to convince one or two other council members to abstain, to mitigate Washington’s isolation on the issue, but American officials said they were resigned to having to wield the US veto once more in support of Israel, according to the UK Guardian.
America’s position is that the emergence of a Palestinian state had to be the outcome of negotiations on all aspects of a Middle East peace settlement.
“We completely believe in the two-state solution and a state for the Palestinian people. We believe the best and the most sustainable way to do that is through direct negotiations between the parties,” the White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said on Thursday.
The Palestinian presidency condemned the US veto as “unfair, unethical and unjustified.”
Meanwhile, explaining the UK abstention, the Guardian quotes the British envoy to the UN, Barbara Woodward, as saying: “We believe that such recognition of Palestinian statehood should not come at the start of a new process, but it doesn’t have to be at the very end of the process,”
Ms Woodward added: “We must start with fixing the immediate crisis in Gaza.”
Palestinians currently have non-member observer status, granted by the UN General Assembly in 2012. An application to become a full member with voting rights would have to be approved by the Security Council and two-thirds of the general assembly.
“Recent escalations make it even more important to support good-faith efforts to find lasting peace between Israel and a fully independent, viable, and sovereign Palestinian state,” António Guterres, the UN secretary general, told the Security Council.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia spoke in favour of granting Palestine full membership, saying “an absolute majority of the global community” also supports it.
He said this marked the fifth time the United States has vetoed a Council resolution since the start of the current hostilities in Gaza last October.
The US “once again demonstrated what they really think of the Palestinians,” Mr Nebenzia told the Security Council. “For Washington, they do not deserve to have their own State. They are only a barrier on the path towards realising the interests of Israel.”
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He said at present, an absolute majority of the global community supports Palestine’s application to become a full member of the UN.
“Today’s use of the veto by the US delegation is a hopeless attempt to stop the inevitable course of history. The results of the vote, where Washington was practically in complete isolation, speak for themselves,” he added.
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