US vetoes Palestinian bid for full UN membership
“Hamas—a terrorist organization—is currently exerting power and influence in Gaza,” said US envoy Robert Wood, explaining why the Palestinians don’t meet the definition of statehood.
Robert Wood, deputy permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations, vetoes the Palestinian bid for admission as a member state of the United Nations at the U.N. Security Council on April 18, 2024.
As expected, the United States vetoed the Palestinian bid for full UN membership during a vote at the UN Security Council on Thursday afternoon.
Of the 15 members of the council, 12 voted for a Palestinian state, including Japan, South Korea, France and Slovenia which don’t currently recognize a Palestinian state. The United Kingdom and Switzerland abstained on the Algeria-drafted resolution.
As one of the five permanent members of the council, Washington has veto power.
Washington has “long been clear that premature actions here in New York, even with the best intentions, will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people,” Robert Wood, deputy US ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council on Thursday.
Wood cited the failure of the council’s committee on new members to reach a consensus on the issue. He also questioned whether the Palestinians meet the basic criteria for UN statehood—questions that prevented the committee from reaching consensus on the original application for full Palestinian UN membership in 2011.
“We have long called on the Palestinian Authority to undertake necessary reforms to help establish the attributes of readiness for statehood and note that Hamas—a terrorist organization—is currently exerting power and influence in Gaza, an integral part of the state envisioned in this resolution,” Wood said.
The Palestinians became the first membership applicant to be turned away by a council vote since Vietnam when the United States voted against its membership in 1976 before relenting the next year.
By US law, full membership for Ramallah at the United Nations outside a political settlement with Israel would automatically terminate US funding for the United Nations.
“For Washington, they do not deserve to have their own state,” Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s UN envoy, said of the Palestinians. “They are only a barrier on the path towards realizing the interests of Israel.”
Barbara Woodward, the United Kingdom’s representative to the United Nations, explained London’s abstention. “We must keep our focus on securing an immediate pause in order to get aid in and hostages out, then making progress towards a sustainable ceasefire without a return to destruction, fighting and loss of life,” she said.
Woodward also described Hamas’s control of Gaza and its holding of hostages as antithetical to the recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Multiple media outlets reported that the Biden administration had been applying pressure on other countries to vote no to avoid being isolated.
Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, rebuked the Security Council for even entertaining a Palestinian member state.
“The child-murdering Hamas rapists are watching this meeting and they are smiling,” Erdan said at a council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian file ahead of the vote.
“There is no bigger prize for terror for today’s meeting,” Erdan said.
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