The new ranking could make it easier for the Palestinians to pursue
Israel in international legal forums, but it remained unclear what
effect it would have on attaining what both sides say they want — a
two-state solution.
Still, the vote offered a showcase for an extraordinary international
lineup of support for the Palestinians and constituted a deeply symbolic
achievement for their cause, made even weightier by arriving on the
65th anniversary of the General Assembly vote that divided the former
British Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and the other
Arab — a vote that Israel considers the international seal of approval
for its birth.
The tally, in which 138 members voted yes, 9 voted no and 41 abstained,
took place after a speech by Mr. Abbas to the General Assembly, in which
he called the moment a “last chance” to save the two-state solution
amid a narrowing window of opportunity.
“The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate
of the reality of the state of Palestine,” he said before the vote.
But in the run-up to the vote, he and Ron Prosor, the Israeli ambassador
to the United Nations, blamed the other side for not doing enough to
pursue peace.
”We have not heard one word from any Israeli official expressing any
sincere concern to save the peace process,” Mr. Abbas said.
“On the contrary, our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an
unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade,
settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in occupied
East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other
practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with
an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the
plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.”
“The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: enough of aggression, settlements and occupation,” he said.
Mr. Prosor, speaking after Mr. Abbas but before the vote was taken, said
the United Nations resolution would do nothing to advance the process.
“Today the Palestinians are turning their back on peace,” he said.
“Don’t let history record that today the U.N. helped them along on their
march of folly.”
As expected, the vote won backing from a number of European countries,
and was a rebuff to intense American and Israeli diplomacy. In an
indication of the bitterness of the blow to the Israelis, the office of
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement calling Mr.
Abbas’s speech “defamatory and venomous” that was “full of mendacious
propaganda against the IDF and the citizens of Israel.”
“Someone who wants peace does not talk in such a manner," the statement continued.
Among the countries that had forecast their yes votes were France, Spain
and Switzerland. Others, like Germany, had said they would abstain, and
a few countries joined Israel and the United States in voting no.
Mr. Prosor reiterated that Israel also favors a two-state resolution to
the Arab-Israeli conflict, but one reached through negotiations, with
some parts of the occupied territories remaining in Israeli hands, with a
strong focus on security concerns and with a formal recognition by the
Palestinians of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state.
“That’s right. Two states for two peoples,” Mr. Prosor said. “In fact,
President Abbas, I did not hear you use the phrase ‘two states for two
peoples’ this afternoon. In fact, I have never heard you say the phrase
‘two states for two peoples.’ Because the Palestinian leadership has
never recognized that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.”
The Israelis also say that the fact that Mr. Abbas is not welcome in the
Gaza Strip, the Palestinian coastal enclave run by Hamas, from which he
was ejected five years ago, shows that there is no viable Palestinian
leadership living up to its obligations now.
“This resolution will not change the situation on the ground,” Mr.
Prosor said. “It will not change the fact that the Palestinian Authority
has no control over Gaza. That is 40 percent of the territory he claims
to represent.”
The vote came shortly after an eight-day Israeli military assault on
Gaza that Israel described as a response to stepped-up rocket fire into
Israel. The operation killed scores of Palestinians and was aimed at
reducing the arsenal of Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza,
part of the territory that the United Nations resolution expects to make
up a future state of Palestine.
The Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, was
politically weakened by the Gaza fighting, with its rivals in Hamas seen
by many Palestinians as more willing to stand up to Israel and fight
back. That shift in sentiment is one reason that some Western countries
gave for backing the United Nations resolution, to strengthen Mr. Abbas
and his more moderate colleagues in their contest with Hamas.
Mr. Abbas directed harsh criticism toward Israel, saying that the
“aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip has confirmed once
again the urgent and pressing need to end the Israeli occupation and for
our people to gain their freedom and independence.”
“This aggression also confirms the Israeli government’s adherence to the
policy of occupation, brute force and war, which in turn obliges the
international community to shoulder its responsibilities toward the
Palestinian people and toward peace,” Mr. Abbas said early in his
speech.
When the General Assembly voted to divide Palestine into two states in
1947, Arabs rejected the division of the land and the creation of
Israel. But since the late 1980s, the Palestine Liberation Organization
has officially endorsed two states, with the state of Palestine defined
as comprising the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — areas beyond
Israel’s pre-1967 borders that it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Mr. Prosor also mentioned that day 65 years ago and what it meant to the
Israelis, saying: “The Palestinians could have chosen to live side by
side with the Jewish state of Israel. Sixty-five years ago they could
have chosen to accept the solution of two states for two peoples. They
rejected it then, and they are rejecting it again today.”
Palestinian officials said it was Israel that had violated its
agreements and international law by building settlements in the West
Bank and East Jerusalem. They say 20 years of failed negotiations with
Israel pushed them to seek this kind of international recognition in the
hopes that it would press Israel and its allies in Washington to step
up peace talks.
Realizing that they could not head off the vote on Thursday, Israel and
the United States worked to contain the fallout from it.
A major concern for the Americans is that the Palestinians might use
their new status to try to join the International Criminal Court. That
prospect particularly worries the Israelis, who fear that the
Palestinians might press for an investigation of their practices in the
occupied territories.
Another worry is that the Palestinians might use the vote to seek
membership in specialized agencies of the United Nations, a move that
could have consequences for the financing of the international
organizations as well as the Palestinian Authority itself. Congress cut
off financing to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization, also known as Unesco, in 2011 after it accepted Palestine
as a member. The United States is a major contributor to many of these
agencies and plays an active role on their governing boards.
Western diplomats anticipated approval of the resolution, which upgraded
Palestine’s observer status at the United Nations from that of an
“entity,” and pushed for a Palestinian commitment not to seek membership
in the International Criminal Court and United Nations specialized
agencies, a privilege that has been open to other nonmember observer
states.
Another step would be an affirmation by the Palestinians that the road
to statehood was through the peace process. And a third could be a
Palestinian commitment to open negotiations with the Israelis.
Such assurances do not appear to have been provided.
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