More than 130 countries voted on Thursday to upgrade Palestine to a nonmember observer state of the United Nations, a triumph for Palestinian diplomacy and a sharp rebuke to the United States and Israel
But the vote, at least for now, did little to bring either the
Palestinians or the Israelis closer to the goal they claim to seek: two
states living side by side, or increased Palestinian unity. Israel and
the militant group Hamas both responded critically to the day’s events,
though for different reasons.
The new status will give the Palestinians more tools to challenge Israel
in international legal forums for its occupation activities in the West
Bank, including settlement-building, and it helped bolster the Palestinian Authority, weakened after eight days of battle between its rival Hamas and Israel.
But even as a small but determined crowd of 2,000 celebrated in central
Ramallah in the West Bank, waving flags and dancing, there was an
underlying sense of concerned resignation.
“I hope this is good,” said Munir Shafie, 36, an electrical engineer who was there. “But how are we going to benefit?”
Still, the General Assembly vote — 138 countries in favor, 9 opposed and
41 abstaining — showed impressive backing for the Palestinians at a
difficult time. It was taken on the 65th anniversary of the vote to
divide the former British mandate of Palestine into two states, one
Jewish and one Arab, a vote Israel considers the international seal of
approval for its birth.
The past two years of Arab uprisings have marginalized the Palestinian
cause to some extent as nations that focused their political aspirations
on the Palestinian struggle have turned inward. The vote on Thursday,
coming so soon after the Gaza fighting, put the Palestinians again — if briefly, perhaps — at the center of international discussion.
“The question is, where do we go from here and what does it mean?” Salam
Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, who was in New York for the
vote, said in an interview. “The sooner the tough rhetoric of this can
subside and the more this is viewed as a logical consequence of many
years of failure to move the process forward, the better.” He said
nothing would change without deep American involvement.
President Mahmoud Abbas
of the Palestinian Authority, speaking to the assembly’s member
nations, said, “The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a
birth certificate of the reality of the state of Palestine,” and he
condemned what he called Israeli racism and colonialism. His remarks
seemed aimed in part at Israel and in part at Hamas. But both quickly
attacked him for the parts they found offensive.
“The world watched a defamatory and venomous speech that was full of
mendacious propaganda against the Israel Defense Forces and the citizens
of Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel responded.
“Someone who wants peace does not talk in such a manner.”
While Hamas had officially backed the United Nations bid of Mr. Abbas,
it quickly criticized his speech because the group does not recognize
Israel.
“There are controversial issues in the points that Abbas raised, and
Hamas has the right to preserve its position over them,” said Salah
al-Bardaweel, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, on Thursday.
“We do not recognize Israel, nor the partition of Palestine, and Israel
has no right in Palestine,” he added. “Getting our membership in the
U.N. bodies is our natural right, but without giving up any inch of
Palestine’s soil.”
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, spoke after Mr.
Abbas and said he was concerned that the Palestinian Authority failed to
recognize Israel for what it is.
“Three months ago, Israel’s prime minister stood in this very hall and
extended his hand in peace to President Abbas,” Mr. Prosor said. “He
reiterated that his goal was to create a solution of two states for two
peoples, where a demilitarized Palestinian state will recognize Israel
as a Jewish state.
“That’s right. Two states for two peoples. In fact, President Abbas, I
did not hear you use the phrase ‘two states for two peoples’ this
afternoon. In fact, I have never heard you say the phrase ‘two states
for two peoples’ because the Palestinian leadership has never recognized
that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.”
The Israelis also say that the fact that Mr. Abbas is not welcome in
Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave run by Hamas, from which he was
ejected five years ago, shows that there is no viable Palestinian
leadership living up to its obligations now.
As expected, the vote won backing from a number of European countries,
and was a rebuff to intense American and Israeli diplomacy. France,
Spain, Italy and Switzerland all voted yes. Britain and Germany
abstained. Apart from Canada, no major country joined the United States
and Israel in voting no. The other opponents included Palau, Panama and
Micronesia.
Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, was
dismissive of the entire exercise. “Today’s grand pronouncements will
soon fade,” she said. “And the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow
and find that little about their lives has changed, save that the
prospects of a durable peace have only receded.”
A major concern for the Americans is that the Palestinians may use their
new status to try to join the International Criminal Court. That
prospect particularly worries the Israelis, who fear that the
Palestinians may press for an investigation of their practices in the
occupied territories widely viewed as violations of international law.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said that after the vote
“life will not be the same” because “Palestine will become a country
under occupation.”
“The terms of reference for any negotiations become withdrawal,” Mr. Erekat said.
Another worry is that the Palestinians may use the vote to seek
membership in specialized agencies of the United Nations, a move that
could have consequences for the financing of the international
organizations as well as the Palestinian Authority itself. Congress cut
off financing to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization, known as Unesco, in 2011 after it accepted Palestine as a
member. The United States is a major contributor to many of these
agencies and is active on their governing boards.
In response to the Palestinian bid, a bipartisan group of senators said
Thursday that they would introduce legislation that would cut off
foreign aid to the authority if it tried to use the International
Criminal Court against Israel, and close the Palestine Liberation
Organization’s office in Washington if Palestinians refused to negotiate
with Israel.
Calling the Palestinian bid “an unhealthy step that could undermine the
peace process,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina,
said that he and the other senators, including Charles E. Schumer,
Democrat of New York, would be closely monitoring the situation.
The vote came shortly after an eight-day Israeli military assault on
Gaza that Israel described as a response to stepped-up rocket fire into
Israel. The operation killed scores of Palestinians and was aimed at
reducing the arsenal of Hamas in Gaza, part of the territory that the
United Nations resolution expects to make up a future state of
Palestine.
The Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, was politically weakened
by the Gaza fighting, with its rivals in Hamas seen by many Palestinians
as more willing to stand up to Israel and fight back. That shift in
sentiment is one reason that some Western countries gave for backing the
United Nations resolution, to strengthen Mr. Abbas and his more
moderate colleagues in their contest with Hamas.READ THE ORIGINAL STORY HERE.
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