US veto in Security Council against full UN membership for Palestine
Published: Friday, Apr 19th 2024, 00:01
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A resolution for the full membership of a Palestinian state in the United Nations has failed in the UN Security Council due to a veto by the USA. Twelve member states voted in favor of the resolution in New York on Thursday, with Switzerland and the UK abstaining. Due to the veto of the USA, which is a permanent member of the most powerful UN body, the adoption of the draft resolution failed.
A few weeks ago, Palestinian UN Ambassador Mansour sent a letter to UN chief António Guterres requesting that the motion, which had already been submitted in 2011, be resubmitted to the Security Council. A competent Security Council committee had examined the motion but was unable to agree on a unified response. Algeria then put the resolution to the vote anyway.
To be successful, at least nine of the 15 Security Council members would have had to vote in favor, and there could not have been a veto from the five permanent Council members - China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA. If successful, the motion would have had to be referred to the UN General Assembly for a vote, where a two-thirds majority would have been required.
The US government is of the opinion that an agreement with Israel on a two-state solution is a prerequisite for the recognition of Palestine's full UN membership. At a meeting of the Security Council on Thursday morning (local time), UN Ambassador Mansour strongly advocated the adoption of the resolution, while his Israeli counterpart Gilad Erdan issued a strong warning against it.
Immediately after the vote, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz praised the US veto. Recognition of a Palestinian state six months after the massacre on October 7 would be a reward for Hamas' terrorism, he wrote on the X platform (formerly Twitter).
In November 2011, the application for full UN membership failed once before at the Security Council. A year later, the United Nations granted the Palestinians observer status in the face of opposition from the USA. Of the 193 UN member states, 139 have so far recognized Palestine as an independent state. Germany is not one of them.
©Keystone/SDA
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