Israel isolated as UN backs Palestine membership bid
The UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly yesterday to back a Palestinian bid for full UN membership, a move that signalled Israel’s growing isolation amid global alarm over the war in Gaza and the extent of the humanitarian crisis.
The assembly voted by 143 to nine, with 25 abstentions, for a resolution that called on the UN security council to bestow full membership on the state of Palestine, while enhancing its mission with a range of new rights and privileges, in addition to what it enjoys in its current observer status.
Israel's envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, delivered a fiery denunciation of the resolution and its backers before the vote. “Today, I will hold up a mirror for you,” he said, taking out a small paper shredder into which he inserted a small copy of the cover of the UN charter. He told the assembly: “You are shredding the UN charter with your own hands. Yes, yes, that’s what you’re doing. Shame on you.”
The Palestinian envoy, Riyad Mansour, pointed out that the vote was being held at a time when Rafah, a last haven for many people in Gaza, faced attack from Israeli forces.
“As we speak, 1.4 million Palestinians in Rafah wonder if they will survive the day and wonder where to go next. There is nowhere left to go,” Mansour said. “I have stood hundreds of times before at this podium, often in tragic circumstances, but none comparable to the ones my people endured today … never for a more significant vote than the one about to take place, a historic one.”
Last night the US government said it was “reasonable to assess” that the weapons it provided to Israel have been used in ways that are “inconsistent” with international human rights law, but found that there was not enough concrete evidence to link specific US-supplied weapons to violations or to warrant cutting the supply of arms.
In its report to Congress, the state department said the assurances given by Israel that they had been using USsupplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law (IHL) were “credible and reliable”.
The report, which had been held up for several days by debate within the state department, expressed deep misgivings about Israeli compliance with IHL but said the US did not have sufficient evidence about individual cases to recommend that arms supplies be suspended.
It came two days after Joe Biden expressed his own misgivings over the Israeli use of US-supplied weapons, and suggested they underpinned his decision to hold up a shipment of powerful US-made bombs.
Yesterday’s UN resolution had been carefully tailored over the previous few days, diluting its language so as not to trigger a cut-off of US funding under a 1990 law. It does not make Palestine a full member, or give it voting rights in the assembly, or the right to stand for membership of the security council, but the vote was a resounding expression of world opinion in favour of Palestinian statehood, galvanised by the continuing bloodshed and famine in Gaza.
Even before the vote yesterday morning, Israel and a group of leading Republicans had urged US funding be cut anyway because of the new privileges the resolution granted to the Palestinian mission.
The US mission to the UN, which voted against the resolution, warned that it would also use its veto again if the question of Palestinian membership returned to the security council. “Efforts to advance this resolution do not change the reality that the Palestinian Authority does not currently meet the criteria for UN membership under the UN charter,” the mission’s spokesperson, Nate Evans, said. “Additionally, the draft resolution does not alter the status of the Palestinians as a ‘non-member state observer mission’.”
The other nations that voted against the resolution were Argentina, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel,
Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Papua New Guinea. The UK abstained.
According to the resolution, the Palestinian mission will now have the right to sit in the general assembly among other states, rather than in its current observer seat at the back. Palestinian diplomats will have the right to introduce proposals and amendments; they can be elected to official posts in the full chamber and on committees; and they will have the right to speak on Middle Eastern matters, as well as make statements on behalf of groups of nations in the assembly.
But the resolution also makes plain that “Palestine, in its capacity as an observer state, does not have the right to vote in the general assembly or to put forward its candidature to United Nations organs.”
Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group, said: “In essence, it gives the Palestinians the airs and graces of a UN member, but without the fundamental attributes of a real member, which are voting power and the right to run for the security council.”
The resolution was crafted to fall short of the benchmark set in a 1990 US law that bans funding of the UN or any UN agency “which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states”. The main faction in the PLO, Fatah, now controls the Palestinian Authority, which the Biden administration is backing to govern Gaza after the war.
On Thursday, Israel’s security cabinet approved a “measured expansion” of the operation in Rafah after ceasefire talks stalled in Cairo. The US adamantly opposes the offensive, and Biden has threatened further restrictions on arms supplies if Israel presses ahead with the attack.
On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, after ordering civilians in the east of Rafah to evacuate. Since then more than 110,000 people have fled the area.
Yesterday the UN reported intense clashes between the IDF and Palestinian militants in the east of the city. According to media reports, Israeli tanks were observed advancing along the road, albeit remaining within the demarcated area the IDF had instructed to be evacuated.
Hamas said it had ambushed Israeli tanks near a mosque in the city’s east, signalling the IDF’s advance towards the city’s periphery.
“A massive ground attack in Rafah would lead to [an] epic humanitarian disaster and pull the plug on our efforts to support people as famine looms,” the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned during a visit to Nairobi.