Historic vote

Sixty-five years after the United Nations passed a resolution promising statehood to the Palestinian people, the UN General Assembly took a decisive step towards fulfilling that pledge.

 Last week, the UNGA voted overwhelmingly – 138 to 9 with 41 abstentions – to endorse non-member observer status to Palestine.

The passing of this resolution is a milestone in the Palestinians’ quest for statehood. Some are describing it as a symbolic achievement.

Indeed, the Palestinians are a long way off from full statehood; this requires endorsement from the Security Council where the Palestinians will come up against the US veto.

And yet the resolution is a victory for the Palestinians. Non-member observer status in the UN will allow them to participate in UNGA debates and enhance their chances of joining UN agencies.

This will negate the full impact of Israel’s bullying of Palestinians through imposition of blockades on Gaza. Importantly, the passage of the UN resolution implies recognition of the boundaries that existed before the 1967 war.

It could also culminate in the Palestinians’ entry into the International Criminal Court, although this is neither automatic nor guaranteed. If the Palestinians are allowed to join the ICC, they can be expected to press war crime charges against Israel.

The vote has laid bare the near total isolation of Israel and the US. Several European countries, which have hitherto stood solidly by Israel/US on the Palestinian question, broke loose on Thursday to either vote with the Palestinians or at least abstain. Israel and the US have criticised the Palestinian move as ‘unilateral’.

They have said that Palestinians should not have gone to the UN but pursued negotiations.

However, it is Israel that has acted unilaterally repeatedly, whether in occupying Palestinian land, opting for military strikes, illegally settling Jews on Palestinian land, or spurning agreements reached with the Palestinians.

And the US has facilitated Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land by providing it with advanced weaponry and not pressuring it to take talks seriously.

Their objections to Palestinians’ ‘unilateral action’ are therefore baseless and reek of hypocrisy. If anything it is the Palestinians who have sought talks for several decades.

They were forced to go to the UN because of the impasse in the peace talks and Israel’s obduracy. It is likely that Israel and the US will seek to punish the Palestinians. Instead they must heed the writing on the wall and get down to making a two-state solution a reality.