The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Friday in support of a Palestinian bid for full membership of the organization, a symbolic move due to the United States’ veto in the Security Council.

Provoking Israel’s ire, an overwhelming majority of the UN General Assembly ruled on Friday that the Palestinians deserved to be full members of the organization, granting them a few additional rights in the absence of a real membership blocked by the United States.

“I have stood on this podium hundreds of times, often in tragic circumstances, but none comparable to what my people are going through today,” said Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour.

“I have stood at this podium hundreds of times, but never for a more important, historic vote than today,” he added, his voice tight with emotion.

This vote “will have an important impact on the future of the Palestinian people”, even if in itself it “does not do justice to the State of Palestine”, which remains an observer, added the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed Issa Abushahab, on behalf of the Arab countries.

Faced with the war in Gaza, the Palestinians, who have had “non-member observer status” since 2012, relaunched in early April their 2011 request to become a full member of the United Nations.

To succeed, such an initiative requires a positive recommendation from the Security Council, before a two-thirds majority vote by the General Assembly. But the United States vetoed this on April 18.

Even though the General Assembly cannot override this veto, the Palestinians decided to turn to its 193 member states, proving that without the American veto, they would have the two-thirds majority needed to validate membership.

The resolution presented by the United Arab Emirates, adopted by 143 votes to 9 with 25 abstentions, “notes that the State of Palestine fulfills the conditions required for membership” of the UN, and “should therefore be admitted to the Organization”.

It therefore requested that the Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably”.

But the United States, which opposes any recognition outside a bilateral agreement between the Palestinians and their Israeli ally, warned on Friday that if the question were to be referred back to the Council, it expected “a result similar to April”.

A precedent?

“We could end up in a kind of doomed diplomatic loop, with the Assembly repeatedly calling on the Council to accept Palestinian membership and the US vetoing it,” commented Richard Gowan, analyst at the International Crisis Group.

With this in mind, the text immediately grants “on an exceptional basis and without setting a precedent”, a series of “additional rights and privileges” to the Palestinians from the Assembly’s 79th session in September.

Unambiguously excluding the right to vote and to be a member of the Security Council, this resolution will enable them, for example, to submit proposals and amendments directly, without going through a third country, or to sit among the member states in alphabetical order.

Even if these measures are largely symbolic, Israel, whose government rejects the two-state solution, blasted the resolution.

“It makes me sick,” said Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan from the rostrum, accusing the Assembly of “giving the rights of a state to an entity already partially controlled by terrorists”.

“With this new precedent, we could see representatives of Daech or Boko Haram sitting here among us”.

“You are tearing the Charter to shreds, shame on you!” he added, putting his money where his mouth was by passing the text of the UN Charter through a shredder.

The United States, which voted against the initiative, had also widely expressed its reservations about it.

The Americans still believe that “unilateral measures at the UN and on the ground” will not lead to lasting peace and a two-state solution, insisted Nate Evans.

With AFP