UN upgrades Palestine to "Non-Member State" observer

Commissar MercZ · November 29th, 2012

Around last year the Palestinian Authority announced it would go on ahead to try and get some degree of recognition from the UN, citing frustrations with settlement construction around the West Bank. They failed in their attempt to get at least nine members of the UN Security Council to vote along with the General Assembly to acknowledge Palestine as a sovereign state.

After getting full membership in some UN organizations like UNESCO, the Palestinian representatives decided to have a resolution within the General Assembly, upgrading Palestine from the current "non-member entity" to a "non-member state", identical to the status of the Vatican.

The resolution vote was tabled for today (November 29th), which is recognized as a Palestinian day by the UN. The GA vote was 138 for, 9 against, with 41 abstaining.

Those that chose to vote against or abstain did so on the grounds that the Palestinian status would have to be reached through negotiations with Israel.

Green is for, Red is against, light blue is abstain. Grey are states that were absent.

138 for:

Spoiler:

9 against

Spoiler:

41 abstentions

Spoiler:

Equatorial Guinea, Kiribati, Liberia, Madagascar, and Ukraine were not present at the vote.

The United States and Israel, among other reasons regarding their positions on the negotiations, are concerned Palestine might take the opportunity to try and push a case in the ICC. The government of Israel for its part threatened punishments towards the Palestinian Authority, mostly in withholding its tax revenue that the state of Israel collects (Israel still has control of taxation in PA territory, which is to be transferred later as declared in the Oslo Accords).

Toph · November 29th, 2012

I was so stoked when I saw it had passed. Apparently the Palestinians are rather excited as well. I think the fear the US and Israel have of Palestine going to the ICC says a hell of a lot about the situation and its history. When 138 countries think you're wrong, it's time to have a bit of a sit down to think things over.

***Mihail*** · November 30th, 2012

It's a step in the right direction, but until the UN recognizes Palestine's statehood, Israel will continue it's push into Palestine, interesting the UK abstain even though recently Israel put a monument up dedicated to the King David terrorist attack, I suppose it's still too conflicted not to move from neutral ground due to political pressure to stay on course.

MrFancypants · November 30th, 2012

The biggest problem with this decision is that it doesn't distinguish between Gaza and West Bank. Rewarding Fatah for adopting peaceful methods and increasing their leverage is a good idea, but this is also going to be an incentive for Hamas and therefore dangerous for Fatah.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toph

I was so stoked when I saw it had passed. Apparently the Palestinians are rather excited as well. I think the fear the US and Israel have of Palestine going to the ICC says a hell of a lot about the situation and its history. When 138 countries think you're wrong, it's time to have a bit of a sit down to think things over.

If only international opinion would be used as guideline by individual states. Then we wouldn't have to deal with this issue at all as the Arabs wouldn't have lost so much territory in their repeated genocidal anti-semitic campaigns.

***Mihail*** · November 30th, 2012

Quote:

The biggest problem with this decision is that it doesn't distinguish between Gaza and West Bank. Rewarding Fatah for adopting peaceful methods and increasing their leverage is a good idea, but this is also going to be an incentive for Hamas and therefore dangerous for Fatah.

Hamas and Fatah were close to reconciling in 2011, the US and Israel superseded as if they haven't enough already and placed pressure on Fatah by threatening to take their funds and block all aid for the reason of their claims that Hamas is a terrorist organization, this is the exact thing they want to happen, they open one door to slam the other, this has been going on long enough as Israel plays pac-man on the remainders of Palestine.

Regardless of the current Palestinian politics the time for state hood is now, not tomorrow and not in a few decades where Palestinian lands will amount to ghetto concentration camps.

MrFancypants · November 30th, 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mihail

Hamas and Fatah were close to reconciling in 2011, the US and Israel superseded as if they haven't enough already and placed pressure on Fatah by threatening to take their funds and block all aid for the reason of their claims that Hamas is a terrorist organization, this is the exact thing they want to happen, they open one door to slam the other, this has been going on long enough as Israel plays pac-man on the remainders of Palestine.

Regardless of the current Palestinian politics the time for state hood is now, not tomorrow and not in a few decades where Palestinian lands will amount to ghetto concentration camps.

Doesn't really surprise me that Israel would try to meddle in a potential Fatah-Hamas alliance. Obviously it is better for Israel if the Palestinians are divided and if the leading power is the one that uses mostly peaceful methods. Wouldn't you do the same?

As for the statehood now - it would be nice if the Palestinians could get their own state. But what happens then? A state implies sovereignty over borders and military. The guys who are shooting self-made rockets at Israel now would instead use higher quality weapons imported from countries that try to exploit Palestine as a proxy for a conflict with Israel (this is already happening as Iranian rockets are moved to Israel through Sudan and Egypt). The result would be that Israel invades the sovereign state and dismantles it. That would be even worse than the present situation.

Strengthening the Fatah seems like the best thing you can do. Even though that isn't a riskless solution for Israel either. Abbas, for example, is a revisionist and somewhat of a holocaust denier. It is understandable how a Jew might be slightly worried about the long-term intentions of someone like that.

Toph · November 30th, 2012

Hence the one state solution. I've yet to read up enough on it, so I don't hold it as the best option, but it seems to be worth researching.

MrFancypants · November 30th, 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toph

Hence the one state solution. I've yet to read up enough on it, so I don't hold it as the best option, but it seems to be worth researching.

With all the hatred on both sides I am not sure this would work well. You might end up with an apartheid state where Arabs are second class citizens. But a one state solution might be a good goal to set if they ever get the two-state thing sorted out.

Octovon · November 30th, 2012

It's an interesting case, to say the least. Canada, or shall I say the ruling Conservative Party, voted "No" and that seems to go against public opinion in this country. PM Stephen Harper has taken something of a hard stance supporting Israel, which is something of a big step for Canadian foreign policy that has historically tried to not take sides in the Middle East (or at least not put both feet in one camp instead of the other).

The ICC question is interesting. If Israel has done nothing wrong, then they should have nothing to fear from an ICC investigation or two.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toph

Hence the one state solution. I've yet to read up enough on it, so I don't hold it as the best option, but it seems to be worth researching.

Sounds nice, maybe that song "Why can't we be Friends?" plays in the background, but there's too much animosity on both sides.

A one state solution sounds nice, but I'm curious of the demographics of such a solution, isn't the population of Palestinians growing much faster than that of Israelis? How willing would Israel be to include the Palestinians if Israelis are going to become the minority in a couple of generations.

Toph · November 30th, 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrFancypants

With all the hatred on both sides I am not sure this would work well. You might end up with an apartheid state where Arabs are second class citizens. But a one state solution might be a good goal to set if they ever get the two-state thing sorted out.

It's more likely that the Jews would become the second class citizens in such a scenario. That's the main argument against it, as far as I can tell. The argument goes "There are so many Muslim states, we need to maintain a distinct Jewish state at all costs". Again, though, I need to read up on it more, I could be off a bit here.