UN Membership for Palestine Now
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
On May 10, 2024, the UN General Assembly passed overwhelmingly, with only nine negative votes (Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and the United States) a resolution (https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/ltd/n24/129/97/pdf/n2412997.pdf) which “Determinesthat the State of Palestine is qualified for membership in the United Nations and should therefore be admitted to membership in the United Nations” and “Accordingly recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably.”
Early foreign policy appointments, both formally announced and authoritatively rumored, by President-elect Donald Trump make clear that there is absolutely no chance that his incoming administration would permit the Security Council to approve an upgrade in the status of the State of Palestine from observer state to full member state.
In addition, prominent members of the Israeli government, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, are expressing the expectation (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/11/far-right-israeli-minister-orders-preparations-for-west-bank-annexation) that, in 2025, the second Trump administration will bless and recognize Israel’s formal annexation of the West Bank, as the first Trump administration recognized Israel’s formal annexation of occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, thereby definitively destroying any possibility of Palestinian self-determination and freedom, and Trump has named a public supporter of Israeli annexation of the West Bank as his ambassador to Israel (https://news.antiwar.com/2024/11/12/trump-picks-mike-huckabee-supporter-of-israeli-annexation-as-ambassador-to-israel).
There is, however, one tiny glimmer of hope in this darkness.
On December 23, 2016, after Trump’s first election but before he took office, President Barack Obama instructed his UN ambassador to abstain, and thereby to permit the adoption by a 14-0 vote, in the vote on UN Security Council Resolution 2334 (https://press.un.org/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm), which reaffirmed that Israel’s establishment of settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, had no legal validity, constituting a flagrant violation of international law, and which reiterated the Security Council’s demand that Israel immediately cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.
Obama’s abstention decision constituted an act of insubordination and disobedience which shocked the Israeli government, and it would have been inconceivable at any previous time during his presidency or if Hillary Clinton had been elected to succeed him. One may assume that Obama did not wish virtually has last act as president to be a final demonstration of his contempt for international law and the views and values of the vast majority of mankind.
While Israel could and, unsurprisingly, has ignored UN Security Council Resolution 2334, a UN Security Council resolution approving full UN member state status for the State of Palestine would create a fact that no country could ignore. The occupation of the entire territory of a UN member state by another UN member state, which, in the case of Palestine, the International Court of Justice has recently confirmed (https://www.icj-cij.org/node/204176) is unlawful and must rapidly end, could not be permitted to stand indefinitely or without prompt and significant consequences.
Might Biden, who has been repeatedly humiliated and treated with contempt by Netanyahu notwithstanding his having given Israel everything it has sought, militarily, financially and diplomatically, as it has pursued its genocidal assault against the Palestinian people, follow the Obama precedent and finally assert his personal freedom and independence by instructing his UN ambassador to abstain from a Security Council vote on a new application by the State of Palestine for full UN member state status?
The period between today and January 20 offers the best opportunity for full UN membership which the State of Palestine has ever had, and it may be the last opportunity.
The State of Palestine and its friends throughout the world should try.
When Will the General Assembly Suspend Israel?
The Biblical Book of Job chronicles a string of catastrophes relentlessly plaguing the main character, Job, who loses his prosperity, his home, his health, and his children. Eventually, an agonized Job curses his own existence as well as the god that created him.
Numerous interpretations of the story exist, and more than one version has circulated through the ancient Near East. One version concludes with Job avowing repentance. “I know that my redeemer liveth, and so I repent in dust and in ashes.”
The Latin root for the word ‘repent’ is pensare – to think. ‘Repent” suggests an effort to rethink.
Job’s surprising repentance has been on my mind as calls increase, in 2024, for the United Nations to rethink its relation to Israel as a member state. Increasingly, civil society groups are pressuring Permanent Missions to the UN to eject Israel as a voting member of the General Assembly.
To paraphrase Pankraj Mishra, writing for the New York Review of Books, a stunned world has watched with disbelief as the United States provisions Israel with weapons enabling a mass murder spree across the Middle East.
Palestinians in the West Bank have recently urged all organizations demanding UN compliance with the International Criminal Court ruling of July 2024 to sign a letter available at World BEYOND War which urges Member States of the United Nations General Assembly to fulfill their duties.
Following up on the potential of this letter, a new coalition, “Global Solidarity for Peace in Palestine” has issued a letter to His Excellency Mr. Philemon Yang, the President of the United Nations General Assembly asking him to convene an urgent meeting of the General Assembly to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, establish and secure humanitarian aid corridors and ensure the complete withdrawal of Israel from the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The letter additionally requests:
- The revival of the UN Committee Against Apartheid to address systemic violations of international law and human rights in the OPT.
- Consideration of targeted boycotts, sanctions, and divestments, particularly against illegal operations in the OPT.
- The establishment of an arms embargo on Israel.
- Exploration of suspending Israel from the General Assembly until it complies with international law.
To further support these efforts, the letter calls for the establishment of an unarmed UN peacekeeping mission in the OPT under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to ensure the safety and dignity of all civilians.
In a way, Israel has already removed itself from norms maintained by the UN Charter as it has consistently flouted UN treaties, Resolutions and Advisory opinions. We must not forget that Israel refuses to acknowledge to the UN its possession of nuclear weapons.
I felt startled, during an initial planning call held with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, when one of them spoke of the evacuation he and his family faced, that very day, and said, “We are facing the final solution. Israel is imposing the final solution on us.” Other participants spoke of having shuddered during bombings, day and night.
Journalist Mehdi Hasan, writes movingly in the Guardian of how absurd it is that the United Nations’ General Assembly agrees to seat Israel as a U.N. member nation.
Israel’s abusive repudiation of the very idea of the United Nations, its escalating and lethal violation of countless international norms, its repeated, lethal attacks on U.N. sanctuaries and peacekeepers justifies its expulsion. Hasan reminds us that Israel’s outgoing Ambassador to the United Nations shredded the UN charter while standing at the General Assembly podium. This is the Charter that declares the UN mission to eradicate the scourge of warfare for future generations.
It is time for the clouds to part above the burning lands of West Asia – for the suffering there to be comforted and their pitiless accusers rebuked by the gathered voice of humanity, by the agent that created Israel and can, when it wishes, “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” The work here is ours, and so let our United Nations demand, and not beg, humanity from Israel and from its imperial sponsor the United States.
- First published at World BEYOND War.
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