Achi news desk-
UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly on Friday is set to back the Palestinian bid to become a full member of the UN by recognizing it as eligible to join and sending the request back to the UN Security Council to “reconsider the issue positively”.
The Palestinians are renewing their bid to become a full member of the United Nations – a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state – after the United States vetoed it in the 15-member UN Security Council last month.
The vote by the 193-member General Assembly on Friday will serve as a global poll of support for the Palestinians. A request to become a full member of the United Nations must first receive the approval of the Security Council and then the General Assembly.
But while the General Assembly alone cannot grant full membership in the United Nations, the proposed resolution that will be put to the vote on Friday will grant the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 – such as a seat among the members of the United Nations in the assembly hall – but it will allow no vote in the body.
Diplomats said the draft text is expected to receive the necessary support for adoption.
The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes seven months into a war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and as Israel expands settlements in the occupied West Bank, which the UN considers illegal.
The Palestinians are now a non-member observer state, de facto state recognition granted by the UN General Assembly in 2012.
US funding
The Palestinian UN delegation in New York said on Thursday – in a letter to UN member states – that the adoption of the proposed resolution supporting full membership in the UN would be an investment in preserving the long-awaited two-state solution.
He said that this “will be a clear confirmation of support at this critical moment for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent state.”
The mission is managed by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited autonomy in the West Bank. Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in Gaza in 2007. Hamas – which has a charter calling for the destruction of Israel – launched an attack on Israel on October 7 that led to Israel’s attack on Gaza.
The UN has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. The Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, all of the territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 war with neighboring Arab states.
The US delegation to the UN said earlier this week: “It remains the view of the US that the path to a state for the Palestinian people is through direct negotiations.”
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, condemned the draft text on Monday for trying to grant the Palestinians the status and de facto rights of a state. According to him, the adoption of the text will not change anything on the ground.
“If this is approved, I expect the US to completely stop funding the UN and its institutions, in accordance with US law,” Erdan said.
Under U.S. law, Washington cannot fund any U.N. organization that grants full membership to any group that does not have the “internationally recognized attributes” of a state. The U.S. cut funding in 2011 to the U.N.’s 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 for any entity that gives rights and privileges to Palestinians. The bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, which is controlled by President Joe Biden’s Democrats.
