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US vetoes Palestinian request for full UN membership
Palestinian president condemns ‘unjustified’ US move
The vote in the 15-member security council was 12 in favor, the US opposed and two abstentions, the UK and Switzerland, The Guardian reported.
Before the vote, diplomats said the US mission had been trying to convince one or two other council members to abstain, to mitigate Washington’s isolation on the issue, but American officials said they were resigned to having to wield the US veto once more in support of Israel.
Washington’s position is that the emergence of a Palestinian state had to be the outcome of negotiations on all aspects of a Middle East peace settlement.
“The United States continues to strongly support a two-state solution. This vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood, but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties,” deputy US ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, told the council.
The decision to veto the request drew rebukes from across the region. The Palestinian president condemned the US veto as “unfair, unethical and unjustified”, while the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said it regretted the inability of the security council to enable full Palestinian membership.
The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, had described the bid for full-member status as an effort “to take our rightful place among the community of nations.”
After the vote, Mansour delivered a passionate address asserting the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
“Our right to self-determination is a natural right – a historical right – to live in our homeland Palestine as an independent state that is free and that is sovereign,” he said.
The Hamas resistance group said in a statement that it condemns “in the strongest terms the American position biased towards the occupation”, as it called on the international community “to exert pressure to go beyond the American will and support the struggle of our Palestinian people and their legitimate right to self-determination”.
Explaining the UK abstention, the British envoy to the UN, Barbara Woodward, said: “We believe that such recognition of Palestinian statehood should not come at the start of a new process, but it doesn’t have to be at the very end of the process.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said he commended the US for casting the veto.
Palestinians currently have non-member observer status, granted by the UN General Assembly in 2012. An application to become a full member with voting rights would have to be approved by the Security Council and two-thirds of the general assembly.