VIDEO Massive but symbolic vote for Palestine to become a UN member / Israel’s ambassador destroyed a copy of the UN Charter with a paper shredder

Enraging Israel, an overwhelming majority of the UN General Assembly ruled on Friday that the Palestinians deserve full membership in the organization, granting them some additional rights, while the US abstained, Reuters and AFP reported.

The assembly passed a resolution with 143 votes in favor and nine against – including the US and Israel – while 25 countries abstained. It does not grant the Palestinians full UN membership, but simply recognizes them as qualified to join.

The resolution “determines that the State of Palestine … should therefore be admitted as a member” and “recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably.”

“I have stood on this podium hundreds of times, often under tragic circumstances, but none compares to what my people are facing today,” said Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour.

“I have stood in this rostrum hundreds of times, but never for a more important vote than today, historically,” he added, his voice choked with emotion.

This resolution “will have a significant impact on the future of the Palestinian people,” even if in itself it “does no justice to the State of Palestine” which remains an observer, added United Arab Emirates Ambassador Mohamed Issa Abushahab, on behalf of the Arab countries.

The resolution presented by the United Arab Emirates “considers that the State of Palestine fulfills the necessary conditions to become a member” of the UN and “should therefore be admitted to the ‘Organization’.”

Thus, she asks the Security Council “to favorably reconsider the matter”.

But the United States, which opposes any recognition outside a bilateral agreement between the Palestinians and their ally Israel, warned on Friday that if the issue returned to the Council, it expected “an outcome similar to April.”

Israel’s ambassador to the UN destroyed a copy of the Charter with a paper shredder

“We want peace, we want freedom,” Palestinian UN ambassador Riyad Mansour said before the vote. “A yes vote is a vote for Palestinian existence, it is not against any state… It is an investment in peace.”

“Voting yes is the right thing to do,” he said in remarks that drew applause.

According to the UN Charter, membership is open to “peace-loving states” that accept the obligations of that document and are able and willing to fulfill them.

“As long as so many of you ‘hate Jews,’ you don’t really care that the Palestinians are not ‘peace-loving,'” Gilad Erdan, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, told his fellow diplomats. spoke after Mansour. He accused the assembly of destroying the UN Charter – as he used a small chipper to destroy a copy of the Charter while at the lectern.

“Shame on you,” Erdan said.

What’s next now?

Faced with the war in Gaza, the Palestinians, who have had the status of a “non-member observer state” since 2012, in early April again asked to become a full member state of the United Nations.

An application to become a full member of the UN must first be approved by the 15-member Security Council and then by the General Assembly. But if the measure is voted on again by the council, it will likely face the same fate as it did on April 18: a US veto.

Even though the General Assembly cannot bypass this veto, the Palestinians decided to appeal to its 193 member states, thus demonstrating that, without the US veto, they would have the two-thirds majority needed to validate membership.

US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told the General Assembly after the vote that unilateral measures at the UN will not promote a two-state solution.

“Our vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood; we have been very clear that we support it and seek to advance it significantly. Rather, it is a recognition that statehood will only come from a process involving direct negotiations between the parties “, he said.

The United Nations has long supported the vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders.

The Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, all territories captured by Israel in the 1967 war with neighboring Arab states.

The General Assembly resolution passed on Friday gives the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 – such as a seat among UN members in the assembly hall – but they will not be granted a right to vote.