UN vote on Palestine
General Assembly vote again for Palestinian membership one of the results of the Gaza massacre
THE vote by the UN General Assembly asking the UN Security Council to ‘reconsider its decision’ not to grant Palestine membership of the organization does not override the veto cast at the USA in the Council against membership, but it does build pressure on the USA. The support expressed for Palestine in the vote, 143 votes in favour and nine against, with 25 abstentions, shower\d that the vast majority of members of the UN want Palestine to join it. Support for Palestine is clearly growing the General Assembly’s resolution calling for a ceasefire got 120 votes, while there were nine votes against and nine abstentions. It also showed why the UN is so ineffective. Palestine wants the recognition of its statehood that UN membership implies, but otherwise it might have in mind the dismal record of the UN’S apex body, the UN security Council, which only passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire on March 19, even though the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip began on 7 October 2023, and which only last month blocked its membership. The UNSC took so long to pass a resolution because all previous resolutions were vetoed by the USA, and the membership was similarly vetoed.
The UN may be the place where the USA gets its way. The vote merely means that the USA may merely have one more veto to cast, to keep Palestine out. However, the USA has got to consider that its kneejerk support of the USA will lead to the erosion of its effectiveness in the world. Even as the world’’s sole superpower it found it had to build a ‘coalition of the willing’ when invading Afghanistan and Iraq. That is jeopardized in an election year by something that is already a political issue, with Democrats, traditionally pro-israel, exercised by the blind support for Israel killing Palestinian babies.
No one should mistake the change in opinion with the October 7 attacks by Hamas, or how it has fought the battle. The world has been sickened by the onesided slaughter of innocents by the Israelis. The Biden Administration should realize that the signs are now all against its continued support of Israel. Not just President Biden, but other candidates in November should realize that supporting Israel may cost them the election, no matter how much monet pro-zionist donors pump into their campaigns.