The UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Friday adopted a resolution supporting the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending that the Security Council "reconsider the matter favorably".
The resolution was adopted with 143 votes in favor and nine against, including the United States and Israel, while 25 countries abstained. China voted for the resolution. East African countries including Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, Kenya, and Burundi, also voted for the resolution.
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The resolution states, "The State of Palestine... should therefore be admitted to membership" and "recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably." The resolution "determines" that a State of Palestine is qualified for membership - dropping the original language that in the UN General Assembly's judgment it is "a peace-loving state." It therefore recommends that the Security Council reconsider its request "favorably."
UNGA President Dennis Francis opened the continuation of the 10th Emergency Special Session (ESS), which last convened on December 12, 2023, against the backdrop of a worsening crisis in Gaza. Francis stated that peace has remained elusive, and the situation has become untenable, deteriorating "at an alarming speed."
This crisis is "bringing countless innocent victims into its deadly fold and pushing the region further to the brink of full-scale catastrophe," he said.
He urged the international community not to look away from the dire situation that has unfolded since the new round of conflict began on October 7, last year, when Hamas attacks into southern Israel led to the killing of 1,200 people and another 250 kidnapped.
The resolution, proposed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on behalf of 22 Arab countries and co-sponsored by about 65 states, asserts that "the State of Palestine is qualified for membership in the United Nations in accordance with Article 4 of the Charter and should therefore be admitted."
In the Security Council vote on April 18, the Palestinians received significant support for full UN membership, with 12 votes in favor. Britain and Switzerland abstained, while the United States voted no and vetoed the resolution.
The 10th ESS convened for the first time in April 1997 following a request from Qatar. It followed a series of Security Council and General Assembly meetings regarding the Israeli decision to build a large housing project in an area of East Jerusalem. The General Assembly on May 1 announced that it would resume the 10th ESS, after Palestine's UN membership bid was blocked by the United States at the Security Council in April.
Francis had informed member states that he would convene a plenary meeting of the ESS on May 10.
Israel's permanent representative to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, accused the assembly, after the vote, of trampling on the UN Charter. Israel’s Ambassador said that after Hitler’s rise to power, the Nazis had sought to annihilate the Jewish people and all those they deemed sub-human, but the forces of good fought to return peace to the world, and the UN was founded to ensure that such tyranny never raised its head again.
"Today, you are doing the opposite...welcoming a terror State into its ranks,” he said.
"You have opened up the United Nations to modern-day Naziism. It makes me sick.”
According to the UN Charter, prospective members must be "peace-loving," and their admission requires a recommendation from the Security Council to the General Assembly for final approval.
The terrorist group Hamas controls Gaza and has taken over areas of the West Bank, he said, holding up a poster showing Hamas’s leader, who he described as "a terrorist diplomat whose stated goal is Jewish genocide”.
"Today, you have a choice between weakness and fighting terror,” he said, adding that the UN is appeasing "murderous dictators” and destroying the UN Charter. "This day will go down in infamy.” In closing, he held up a mini portable electric document shredder and inserted the cover of the UN Charter.
Explaining the US’s negative vote, Ambassador Robert Wood said: "We have been very clear that we support it and seek to advance it meaningfully. Instead, it is an acknowledgement that statehood will come from a process that involves direct negotiations between the parties,” he said.
"There is no other path that guarantees Israel’s security and future as a democratic Jewish State. There is no other path that guarantees Palestinians can live in peace and dignity in a State of their own.”