The US vetoed Palestine’s application for full membership in the UN on Thursday. The veto came as the UN Security Council considered a resolution put forward by Algeria that would have granted Palestine full UN membership. The resolution received 12 votes in favor, more than the required 9, but the US used its veto to guarantee the effort’s failure. Two countries, the UK and Switzerland, abstained.
Palestine has been a Permanent Observer State at the UN since 2012, when the General Assembly passed a resolution granting it that status amid a lack of Security Council support for full membership. As a Permanent Observer State, a status shared with the Holy See, Palestine can participate in all UN proceedings, but it cannot vote on draft resolutions or decisions. Palestine has been seeking UN membership since it submitted its application in 2011 and recently pushed the Security Council to vote on its status.
The UN’s charter says that membership is open to “peace-loving states which accept the obligations” of the charter. To be admitted as a full member, a state’s application must be approved by the Security Council with at least nine votes and no vetoes, as well as a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly. More than 100 states have been admitted to the UN using this procedure. Although more than nine Security Council members supported Palestine’s membership and there is broad support in the General Assembly, the US’s veto prevents the application from moving forward.
The US defended its veto, saying it was necessary to promote negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. It claimed that unilateral recognition at the UN would jeopardize the two-state solution, saying that “premature actions here in New York, even with the best intentions, will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people.” It argued that reforms were necessary “to help establish the attributes of readiness for statehood,” including addressing Hamas’s influence in Gaza. Despite its veto, the US insisted, “This vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood, but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties.”
Palestine’s representative at the UN, Riyad Mansour, said that voting to admit Palestine as a full member would “revive the hope that has been lost among our people” and reestablish a path towards realizing a two-state solution. He thanked the majority of Security Council members who voted for full membership, saying they “have risen to the level of this historic moment, and they have stood on the side of justice and freedom and hope, in line with the ethical and humanitarian and legal principles that must govern our world and in line with simple logic.” Mansour expressed determination, saying the US’s veto “will not break our will” and that, “The State of Palestine is inevitable. It is real. Perhaps they see it as far away, but we see it as near, and we are the faithful.”
Israel applauded the US’s veto, with its UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, specifically thanking President Biden in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Erdan described the US’s veto as preventing a “destructive move” to “impose a Palestinian terrorist state” and told the Security Council that the vote “will only embolden Palestinian rejectionism even more and make peace almost impossible.” He criticized the Security Council for not specifically condemning Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, claiming it “refuse[d] to do the moral and right thing” and saying that speaking to it was “like talking to a brick wall.”
The Security Council vote comes weeks after it passed a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. The US abstained in that vote, though it had vetoed three previous resolutions. Gaza has been decimated in the six months of war, with reports from the BBC and the Guardian showing that at least half of the buildings in the territory have been damaged or destroyed, including entire neighborhoods. Israeli strikes have hit locations including medical facilities and refugee camps, and human rights groups have accused Israel of war crimes. Nearly 2 million people, 85 percent of the territory’s population, have been displaced by the violence and more than 33,000 people have been killed—mostly civilians. Survivors face a collapsed medical system and imminent famine.
Palestinian rights groups and President Mahmoud Abbas contend that Israel’s actions amount to genocide. Israel rejects this, saying Hamas embeds itself in civilian facilities. Still, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) previously ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent a “plausible” genocide in Gaza. It recently issued a second order with additional emergency provisional measures to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
