UN General Assembly backs Palestinian bid for membership

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognising it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council (UNSC) "reconsider the matter favourably."

The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member — a move that would effectively recognise a Palestinian state — after the United States vetoed it in the UN Security Council last month.

The assembly adopted a resolution on Friday with 143 votes in favour and nine against — including the US and Israel — while 25 countries abstained. It does not give the Palestinians full UN membership, but simply recognises them as qualified to join.

The General Assembly resolution "determines that the State of Palestine ... should therefore be admitted to membership" and it "recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favourably."

"The council must respond to the will of the international community," United Arab Emirates UN Ambassador Mohamed Abushahab told the assembly before the vote.

The General Assembly resolution adopted on Friday does give the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 — like a seat among the UN members in the assembly hall — but they will not be granted a vote in the body.

The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de facto recognition of statehood that was granted by the UN General Assembly in 2012.

The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes seven months into a war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, which the UN considers to be illegal.

"We want peace, we want freedom," Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the General Assembly before the vote. "A yes vote is a vote for Palestinian existence, it is not against any state. ... It is an investment in peace."

"Voting yes is the right thing to do," he said in remarks that drew applause.

Under the founding UN Charter, membership is open to "peace-loving states" that accept the obligations in that document and are able and willing to carry them out.

The Palestinian UN mission in New York said on Thursday — in a letter to UN member states — that adoption of the resolution backing full UN membership would be an investment in preserving the long-sought-for two-state solution.

It said it would "constitute a clear reaffirmation of support at this very critical moment for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State."

Reuters