(Article by Ibtissem N. Brahimi)
MAHMOUD ABBAS has officially submitted Palestine's bid for full UN membership
On Friday, September 23, the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, has presented the country's official bid for full membership of the United Nations as an internationally recognized State of Palestine to the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Sixty-four years after the partition of Palestine, the bid, which seeks to finally enforce what has been granted by the same body back then, has been submitted to the assembly of the very nations under whose patronage the partition took place.
Israel immediately responded, expressing 'regret' at the Palestinian move. “We regret this approach,” said Gidi Schmerling, the spokesman of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We believe that the only path to peace is through negotiations, not through unilateral acts,” he added.
Mahmoud Abbass, on his part, stated on Thursday during a meeting with a delegation of Americans of Palestinian origin: “The U.S. administration has done everything in its power to defeat this project. But we will go ahead despite the obstacles and political pressure because we want our rights; we are the only people in the world still under occupation.”
Both Israel and the United States are opposed to this initiative, claiming that a Palestinian state could only be the result of a peace agreement under Israeli auspices. US President Barack Obama lost no time to come to their aid by declaring that the USA will exercise its veto right in the Security Council if necessary.
Palestinians are in a hopeful and a hopeless mood at the same time. They are hopeful because now the Palestinian cause is well known and recognized the world over, with a lot of countries giving their support to this cause, and hopeless because for them it’s obvious that USA will use its veto to prevent the Palestinian people from realizing their legitimate endeavor. They do so in full awareness that full UN membership of Palestine is a key condition for any progress in the peace negotiations and full Palestinian statehood is the only possible way for the Mid-East peace process to go anywhere. Their veto is therewith tantamount to a perpetuation of the Mid East conflict, which lies neither in the interest of Palestinians nor Israelis, nor, in the long run, in the interests of the United States themselves.
The result of this motion is expected on Wednesday.
Ibtissem N. Brahimi
