UN Security Council

Madrid. The United States vetoed this Thursday during a vote held in the UN Security Council the entry of Palestine as a full member of the international organization within the framework of a process that had been paralyzed since 2011.

The admission recommendation has failed after the United States exercised its veto as a permanent member of the Security Council. A total of 12 countries have voted in favor – including Russia -, while one has voted against and another abstained. In this way, Palestine will continue to be a non-member observer, a status it has had since 2012.

“The Security Council, having examined the application of the State of Palestine for admission to the United Nations (S/2011/592), recommends to the General Assembly that the State of Palestine be admitted as a member of the United Nations,” reads the rejected text.

The last time a state exercised its right to veto the accession of new members was in 1976 when the then US representative to the UN William W. Scranton raised his hand to reject Vietnam’s entry into the international organization during the president’s term. Gerald Ford. A year later, the United States gave the green light to the recommendation.

The resolution had to have the support of at least nine of the 15 members of the Council, with no permanent member – the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom – voting against. Once this process was completed, the resolution had to go through a second vote in the General Assembly, where it had to have a majority of two thirds of the 193 member states that comprise it.

The petition was initially presented in 2011, although the process was paralyzed and has been relaunched again after the Palestinian representative to the UN, Riad Mansur, requested in early April in a letter to the Secretary General, António Guterres, that the non-member observer status be reviewed.

The vote in the Security Council takes place in the middle of the Israeli Army’s offensive against the Gaza Strip, controlled by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), where nearly 34,000 Palestinians have already died, according to the Gazan authorities.

The Israeli Army launched its offensive after the attacks by Palestinian militias on October 7, which left around 1,200 dead and around 240 kidnapped. Added to these death tolls are more than 460 Palestinians killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem at the hands of Israeli security forces and in attacks carried out by settlers.

Palestinian presidency calls US veto “immoral”.

The Palestinian Presidency has “strongly” condemned and called the veto “immoral” and noted that the US decision is “unjust, immoral and unjustified”, and “defies the will of the international community, which strongly supports obtaining the full membership of the State of Palestine in the United Nations”, as reported by the Palestinian news agency He died.

Likewise, he has stressed that the “aggressive US policy towards Palestine, its people and their legitimate rights represents a clear aggression against International Humanitarian Law, and encourages the continuation of the Israeli genocidal war against” the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, “and pushes the region further to the brink, in light of the continued Israeli occupation.”

“This aggressive US veto reveals the contradictions of US policy, which seeks, on the one hand, to support the two-state solution, while preventing the international institution from implementing this solution through its repeated use of the veto in the Security Council against Palestine and its legitimate rights,” he indicated.

However, he thanked the Member States that have voted in favor of the State of Palestine obtaining full membership in the international organization, “noting that this international vote in favor of the rights of the Palestinian people is proof that the world “is united behind the values ​​of truth, justice, freedom and peace that the Palestinian cause represents, and against the continued crimes of the occupation.”

On the other hand, he added that “achieving peace, security and stability in our region and in the world depends on the implementation of international legitimacy resolutions, ending the Israeli occupation of the land of the State of Palestine and recognizing the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, above all the right to self-determination and the establishment of their independent State with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Israel praises the EU

The Israeli government praised Washington for vetoing Palestine’s accession as a full member of the international body. “The proposal to recognize a Palestinian state, more than six months after the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and after the sexual crimes and other atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists, is a reward for ‘terrorism’,” said the minister. Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz.

In this sense, he stressed that “‘terrorism’ will not be rewarded” and that “Israel will continue fighting until Hamas is destroyed and the 133 hostages in Gaza are freed.” He also considered that “it is outrageous that even half a year after the October 7 massacre, the UN Security Council has not condemned the horrendous crimes of Hamas.”

Israeli diplomatic spokesman Oren Marmorstein added that the Palestinian Authority, “which pays stipends to the murderers of Jews, does not meet the international criteria that define statehood,” stating that “the Algerian proposal to improve the status of the Palestinians in the UN is immoral, invites more violence, violates the principle of direct negotiations and it is good that the proposal has been rejected.