Palestine's application to join the United Nations was put on the agenda again after 13 years, which aroused special concern; in the early hours of this morning, Beijing time, in a vote held in the UN Security Council, although a majority voted in favor, due to a veto by the United States, Palestine's "accession to the United Nations" failed again. What kind of wrestling and game is this? What kind of historical ups and downs are there, and how will it affect the current Kazakh-Israeli conflict and the chaos in the Middle East?
Part.1
On the afternoon of April 18, local time in the United States, the United Nations Security Council voted on a draft resolution recommending that the United Nations General Assembly approve the State of Palestine to become a member of the United Nations. In this vote, China, Russia, France, Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Mozambique, Malta, South Korea, Sierra Leone and Slovenia voted 12 in favor, and the United Kingdom and Switzerland abstained 2.
The United States exercised its veto power in the vote, terminating the Palestinian "accession" process.
This is the first time in 13 years that Palestine has applied for "membership" in the United Nations. On April 11, the Security Council met behind closed doors and failed to reach a "consensus" on Palestine becoming a full member of the United Nations.
Niu Xinchun, professor at the Institute of Chinese Arab States Studies at Ningxia University:
"There has never been a better time in the history of Palestine to join the United Nations, and in the past six months or so of the Gaza conflict, the 'two-state solution' for Palestinian statehood has once again returned to the center stage of international politics. At present, the international community generally believes that in order to completely resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is necessary to implement the 'two-state solution', that is, Palestine must establish a state and become a full member of the UN Security Council. ”
According to the UN Charter, a country must go through two procedures to become a full member of the UN: one is to have the support of more than nine of the 15 members of the Security Council, and the permanent members do not exercise the right of "one-vote veto", and the other is to obtain more than two-thirds of the votes of the 193 member states in the UN General Assembly. Since 139 countries have already approved it, the key to the success or failure of Palestine's application for "membership" lies in the results of the Security Council's vote.
Gao Zhikai, Deputy Director of the Think Tank for Globalization:
"Every permanent member has a veto, and it is more difficult for all five permanent members to agree, especially considering the inextricable relationship between Israel and the United States, the United States has always regarded Israel as its strongest ally in the Middle East, and there is indeed a very strong Jewish power in the United States, and the easiest way for the United States government is to abstain or oppose it. ”
According to foreign media reports, just as the vote is approaching, there are constant debates within the Security Council, and all parties are wrestling, the Biden administration has asked Palestinian President Abbas to withdraw his application to restart the "joining the United Nations", and US Secretary of State Blinken directly put forward a request to suspend the "joining the United Nations" during a phone call with Abbas.
At the same time, the United States and Israel tried to persuade Security Council members France, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea and Ecuador to vote against or abstain from voting on the draft resolution related to Palestine's "accession to the United Nations" in order to prevent it from obtaining the nine affirmative votes that passed the Security Council's vote, Robert Wood, deputy permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations, said that "the position of the United States has not changed".
Dong Manyuan, researcher at the China Institute of International Studies:
"The United States is in favor of a Palestinian state. The first is to demand that the PLO mainstream completely draw a line of demarcation from Hamas, and promise to assist Israel in continuing to fight and eliminate the remnants of Hamas and destroy the social foundation of Hamas after taking over Gaza. Article 2: The basic premise of statehood is that it does not pose any threat to Israel. The third is to require it to be honest and honest. If these three do not happen, the United States will vote against it. ”
In blocking the "accession of Palestine to the United Nations," the United States stressed that the United States supports the Palestinian people, but that Palestine has not completely resolved the issue of its internal unity and independence.
However, Palestine had already declared its statehood in 1988, and 139 United Nations Members had recognized Palestine as a sovereign State. Recently, the Spanish prime minister said that he had agreed with the leaders of Norway and Ireland that they would recognize the existence of Palestine when the time is right.
Niu Xinchun, professor at the Institute of Chinese Arab States Studies at Ningxia University:
"The international community supports the establishment of a Palestinian state, and more and more countries support Palestine to become a full member, and the voice is getting louder and louder, and if the United States vetoes it, it will be very isolated in the international community, and this situation has formed a lot of pressure on Israel and the United States, which is meaningful to Palestine. ”
Part.2
The Jews founded Israel on May 14, 1948, and joined the United Nations as a full member on May 11, 1949, on the eve of the first anniversary of the establishment of Israel, but the Arabs did not choose to establish a state, but launched a full-scale war to expel the Jews and establish a unified Arab state the day after the establishment of the State of Israel.
After the end of the Third Middle East War, Israel completely occupied the territories that had been allocated to Palestine by the then United Nations resolutions. This land has a total of 27,000 square kilometers, and Israel has given 6,000 square kilometers of land to the Palestinians, of which Gaza and the West Bank are the two larger ones.
Gao Zhikai, Deputy Director of the Think Tank for Globalization:
"After the war in the Middle East, the Arab countries have suffered a crushing defeat, and the Palestinian land is fragmented, and the scale is insignificant and disconnected. This has made it impossible for ordinary Palestinians in Israeli-controlled areas to form a scale and to make their voices heard. Later, their self-consciousness became stronger and stronger, and there were various organizations, the most important of which was the PLO, the predecessor of the PLO was the Fatah organization, which wanted to bring the Palestinian people together and form their own unique ideology and organizational form to promote Palestinian statehood and protect the legitimate rights and interests of the Palestinian people. ”
While continuing its armed struggle, the PLO began to actively seek to join the United Nations and participate in its affairs in order to increase its international influence. In December 1988, the United Nations General Assembly decided to replace the PLO with the name Palestine and to maintain the Palestinian category of non-State observers.
Dong Manyuan, researcher at the China Institute of International Studies:
"At the height of the PLO, there were no differences among the eight factions, all of which advocated the reconquest of the land by means of armed struggle. And the slogan is to destroy Israel and establish a Palestinian state, which is the goal of the PLO's struggle. Efforts to pursue the form of war had failed, and had been transformed into a peaceful negotiation for the restoration of the rights and interests of the Palestinian people. When the PLO proclaimed the establishment of a Palestinian State in 1988, the pattern of armed struggle ended. ”
In 1993, Palestine and Israel signed the "Oslo Accords," according to which Palestine could establish a sovereign and independent state and establish its own government within five years, and since then the PLO and Israel have begun 21 years of peace talks in order to have an independent and sovereign state. In 2005, Israel withdrew all Israeli troops in Gaza, as well as all Jewish settlements.
Dong Manyuan, researcher at the China Institute of International Studies:
"The Oslo Accords allow the PLO mainstream to return to Palestinian soil, but in a phased manner, with the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area of the West Bank followed by the takeover of other West Bank cities for a period of five years of autonomy under the agreement. During the period of self-government, negotiations were made with Israel on the borders of the country and the location of the capital, whether the refugees had the right to return, and so on. Subsequent developments have shown that the Oslo Accords are faltering and that no outcome has been negotiated to this day. ”
Part.3
In the course of the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, Israel demanded that all potential Israeli security loopholes, especially Hamas, be resolved before the Palestinian state was declared. In order to break the deadlock, the Palestinians turned their attention to the United Nations.
On September 23, 2011, at the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas submitted to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon the application of Palestine to become a full member of the United Nations.
Dong Manyuan, researcher at the China Institute of International Studies:
"Full members enjoy the rights and interests of Member States as stipulated in the Charter of the United Nations, have the right to vote, observers do not have the right to vote, and when the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member States are violated, they may exercise their right to self-defence in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. ”
Although Abbas's speech touched many diplomats on the spot, the United States still used the Montevideo Convention as an excuse to block Palestine's "accession to the United Nations," which involves the definition of a sovereign state: permanent population, defined territory, own government, and the ability to establish ties with other countries.
With the direct intervention of the United States, in the end, the application for Palestinian "accession" to the United Nations was not approved.
On 29 November 2012, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution by a large majority to make Palestine an observer state at the United Nations. Palestine, which lacks full membership in the United Nations, has no say in many international affairs, even those that concern its own interests. Since 2014, Israel has forcibly linked the issue of Palestinian statehood and international status to the Hamas issue, blaming the outbreak of large-scale armed conflict between Hamas and Israel, which has brought the long-pending Palestinian issue back to the starting point.
Dong Manyuan, researcher at the China Institute of International Studies:
"Israel's designation of Hamas as a 'terrorist organization' and its firm opposition to the United Nations' admission of the State of Palestine as a full member state are considered a reward for terrorism, and it considers the October 7, 2023, acts to be the same as the genocide of Jews by Nazi Germany. ”
Part.4
At present, the new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict has lasted for six months, and more than 33,000 Palestinians have died in the conflict, which has brought a huge humanitarian disaster. The international community's high level of sympathy for the Palestinian people has also led to Israel's unprecedented international isolation, and the United States has thus fallen into a passive position.
At this juncture, 13 years later, Palestine once again proposed to establish an independent and self-reliant Palestine on the basis of a series of UN resolutions and admit it as a member of the UN, so as to truly realize equality, peace and security coexistence with neighboring countries.
Dong Manyuan, researcher at the China Institute of International Studies:
"The mainstream PLO faction sees the hope of Palestine becoming a full member of the United Nations, the first is the general concern of the international community, and the second is that the Biden administration of the United States has repeatedly expressed its willingness to activate the 'two-state solution', if it can meet the requirements of the United States, then the United States will not prevent Palestine from becoming a full member of the United Nations, so it thinks that this time it may be successful. ”
According to media analysis, at this stage, the war in Gaza has been delayed and cannot be ceasefired, and for Palestine, gaining the status of a sovereign state through becoming a member of the United Nations will put Israel in an embarrassing position.
Niu Xinchun, professor at the Institute of Chinese Arab States Studies at Ningxia University:
"Israel threatens Palestine that if you want to seek your legitimacy internationally, then don't talk about the 'two-state solution', and Israel has also imposed economic sanctions on Palestine many times, because Palestinian tax revenues are now in the hands of Israel, and Israel often withholds tax revenues from the PLO. The search for legitimacy in international institutions is a fierce struggle between Israel and Palestine. ”
Hamas issued a statement in the early morning of April 19 local time, strongly condemning the United States for exercising its veto power in the UN Security Council vote to prevent Palestine from becoming a member of the UN. The statement reaffirmed that the Palestinian people will continue to struggle and resist until an independent, sovereign and intact Palestinian State is established.
Gao Zhikai, Deputy Director of the Think Tank for Globalization:
"If there is no hope for a Palestinian state to join the United Nations this time, and the Palestinian people are becoming more and more extreme under the influence of Hamas, there will be no words of peace for Israel. The fire of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will burn brighter and brighter. ”
Mansour's "historic day" has not yet arrived, and there is still a long way to go for Palestine to achieve national independence and sovereignty. Internally Hamas and Fatah disagreements, how the Gaza Strip and the West Bank can be united, and externally how to reach an agreement with Israel on territory, security and resources. Only when these problems are resolved can Palestine truly achieve national independence and development. However, judging from the current state of Palestinian-Israeli relations, there is still a long way to go before the final settlement of the Palestinian issue is reached.
Producer: Wang Ruixue
Choreographer: Yi Yan
Editor: Wang Jinjie