UN upgrade of Palestine status a sharp rebuke for Israel and US
The United Nations has voted overwhelmingly to recognise a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians still face enormous limitations: they do not control their borders, airspace or trade, they have separate and competing governments in Gaza and the West Bank, and they have no unified army or police.
In an extraordinary line-up of international support, more than two-thirds of the world body’s 193 member states approved the resolution upgrading the Palestinians’ status from an observer to a non-member observer state.
It passed 138-9, with 41 abstentions.
The vote was a victory decades in the making for the Palestinians after years of occupation and war. It was a sharp rebuke for Israel and the United States.
The vote grants Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas an overwhelming international endorsement for his key position: establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.
A Palestinian flag was quickly unfurled on the floor of the General Assembly, behind the Palestinian delegation, after an electronic screen lit up with the final vote.
Real independence, however, remains an elusive dream until the Palestinians negotiate a peace deal with the Israelis, who warned that the General Assembly action will only delay a lasting solution.
Israel still controls the West Bank, east Jerusalem and access to Gaza, and it accused the Palestinians of bypassing negotiations with the campaign to upgrade their UN status.
The UN action also could help Mr Abbas restore some of his standing, which has been eroded by years of stalemate in peace efforts.
His rival, the Hamas militant group, deeply entrenched in Gaza, has seen its popularity rise after it responded with a barrage of rocket fire to an Israeli offensive earlier this month on targets linked to the militants.
In the West Bank city of Ramallah, jubilant Palestinians crowded into the main square, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “God is great!”
Hundreds had watched the vote on outdoor screens and televisions, and they hugged, honked their horns and set off fireworks as the final vote was cast.
The tally came after a speech by Mr Abbas in which he called the moment a “last chance” to save the two-state solution.
“The General Assembly is being asked today to issue the birth certificate of Palestine,” the Palestinian leader declared.
The United States and Israel immediately criticised the vote.
“Today’s unfortunate and counterproductive resolution places further obstacles in the path of peace,” UN Ambassador Susan Rice said.
“Today’s grand pronouncements will soon fade and the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded.”
Calling the vote “meaningless”, Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu accused Mr Abbas of spreading “mendacious propaganda” against Israel in a speech he rejected as “defamatory and venomous”.
“The resolution in the UN today won’t change anything on the ground,” Mr Netanyahu said. “It won’t advance the establishment of a Palestinian state, but rather, put it further off.”
With most UN members sympathetic to the Palestinians, there had been no doubt the resolution would be approved. A state of Palestine has already been recognised by 132 countries, and the Palestinians have 80 embassies and 40 representative offices around the world, according to the Palestinian Foreign Ministry.
