2024-04-19 01:07:30
- Author, Writing
- Role, BBC News World
-
April 18, 2024
Updated 1 hour
The United States vetoed this Thursday a resolution in the UN Security Council to grant full member status of the organization to a Palestinian state.
The Palestinian Authority has had observer status since 2012, but cannot vote in the proceedings.
Twelve members voted in favor of the resolution, while the US voted once morest and there were two abstentions: the United Kingdom and Switzerland.
The US, like the other four permanent members of the Council, has veto power, so its vote once morest prevented the adoption of the resolution.
US Vice Ambassador Robert Wood explained why his country voted once morest it.
“We have long called on the Palestinian Authority to undertake the necessary reforms to help establish the attributes of readiness for statehood, and we note that Hamas, a terrorist organization, is currently exerting power and influence in Gaza, a integral part of the State envisioned in this resolution. For these reasons, the US voted ‘no’ to this Security Council resolution,” he said.
“One more time, The US continues to strongly support the two-state solution. “This vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood, but is a recognition that it will only emerge from direct negotiations between the parties,” he added.
Following the vote, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said a “shameful proposal” had been rejected.
The US is a close ally of Israel and has on several occasions used its veto power in the Security Council to avoid condemnations and resolutions unfavorable to that country.
But the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas condemned the US veto as “unfair, unethical and unjustified”and said it defied the will of the international community.
Caption, Following Hamas’s incursion into Israeli territory, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government began an offensive in the Gaza Strip that is still ongoing.
Palestinian representative Riad Mansur told the Security Council that full UN status would provide hope for an independent state.
“The fact that this resolution has not been passed will not break our will or defeat our resolve,” he said.
“We will not give up our efforts. The State of Palestine is inevitable. It is real. Maybe they see it far away, but we see it close and we have faith,” he added.
Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan said passing the resolution would amount to a reward for terror following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
That day, some 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 were kidnapped during a surprise armed raid carried out by that Palestinian group in Israeli territory, according to the authorities of that country.
That action was the trigger for the current war in the Gaza Strip, where the strong Israeli military response has killed some 33,000 people, according to the Ministry of Health of the Strip, under control of Hamas.
The difficulties of achieving peace
The borders of Israel and a future Palestinian State, the status of Jerusalem, the return of refugees, the distribution of water or the use of violence as a political weapon have been, from the beginning, some of the main obstacles that have prevented advance a peace proposal.
In recent years, the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, as well as divisions on the Palestinian side and the lack of political will on both sides have added to the difficulties that make the possibility of two states – one Palestinian and one Israeli – living together in peace.
More than 700,000 Israelis live in some 300 settlements in the Palestinian territories, between the West Bank (half a million) and East Jerusalem (regarding 200,000), according to figures from B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
Caption, Disagreements between Palestinians and Israelis began even before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.
Resolution 181 of the UN General Assembly, approved on November 29, 1947, It provided for the creation of these two states and established a plan for the partition of the territoryits borders, as well as the steps that had to be taken for the creation of these independent states and for their admission to the UN.
However, both the Palestinians and the Arab countries rejected that resolution and when the creation of the State of Israel was proclaimed in May 1948, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria launched an attack once morest it to prevent it from becoming a reality. .
After the armistice of 1949, which ended the war between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the so-called Green Line served to de facto delimit the territory of Israel from the Palestinian territories. The Green Line separates Jerusalem in two and demarcates the West Bank and Gaza.
During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel managed to take the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt; the Golan Heights to Syria; and East Jerusalem and the West Bank to Jordan.
Since then, successive Israeli governments began building settlements in East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, ignoring the Green Line.
After the end of the 1973 war, started by Egypt and Syria, a process of rapprochement began between Israel and Egypt that culminated in the return of the Sinai and the signing of a bilateral peace agreement.
In 2005, Israel dismantled settlements in the Gaza Strip and unilaterally withdrew from there.
The United Nations Security Council has reaffirmed that the settlements built by Israel in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including those in Jerusalem, are “a flagrant violation of international law and a major obstacle to the vision of two states living side by side.” of the other in peace and security, within internationally recognized borders.”
Israel does not see it that way and considers all authorized settlements to be legal.
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