‘Cautious Optimism’: Palestinian Leader Abbas Will Push for Full UN Membership Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas is preparing to make what may be his last annual speech at the U.N. General Assembly next week, as P.A. officials express “cautious optimism” that a new initiative to win full U.N. membership for the “State of Palestine” may succeed.
To do so, however, would require a decision by the Biden administration not to use its veto to kill a U.N. Security Council resolution. Given the current makeup of the council, all 14 other members would likely vote in favor – or perhaps, in one or two cases, abstain.
After the Obama-Biden administration in 2011 threatened to veto a similar measure, the initiative moved to the General Assembly, where no member-state holds veto power. A resolution upgrading the P.A.’s status to that of “non-member observer state” passed easily the following year.
The entity administered by Abbas is not a sovereign state. Longstanding U.S. policy has held that granting the Palestinians full membership in the U.N. or its agencies, in the absence of a negotiated settlement leading to statehood, would be counterproductive.
The U.S. has consistently supported its ally Israel in the Security Council, although the Obama administration broke with the norm in its final weeks, abstaining rather than vetoing a resolution describing areas including the location in Jerusalem of the holiest site in Judaism, as “occupied Palestinian territory.”
The P.A.’s latest push for U.N. membership comes at a time when the administration is signaling support for a new campaign of Security Council reforms, including a commitment to a high bar for the use of its veto power.
“We will refrain from the use of the veto except in rare, extraordinary situations,” Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield pledged in a speech last week....
https://www.cnsnews.com/article/international/patrick-goodenough/cautious-optimism-palestinian-leader-abbas-will-push-full
