The United States vetoed a request from Palestine to be recognised as a full member of the United Nations during a Security Council meeting held in New York on Thursday, April 18. The veto was in response to a draft proposal recommending that “the State of Palestine be admitted to membership” of the United Nations. The United Kingdom and Switzerland abstained from voting, while the twelve remaining members on the Council voted in favour.

Deputy US Ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, stated that “this vote does not reflect opposition to Palestine statehood, but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties”, as noted in Reuters. The outcome of the vote was criticised and condemned by Palestinian authorities, with President Mahmoud Abbas describing America’s choice as “unfair, unethical, and unjustified”, and UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour telling the Council that “the fact that the resolution did not pass will not break our will and it will not defeat our determination. We will not stop in our effort.” On the other hand, Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan, addressing the 12 Council members who voted in favour of the resolution, stated that “your vote will only embolden Palestinian rejectionism even more and make peace almost impossible.”

The United States’ decision to veto the Palestinian proposal, although not unexpected due to Washington’s close historical ties with Israel, has further inflamed tensions surrounding the Palestinian question and the ongoing conflict. Palestine, already feeling abandoned in the face of Israel’s retaliation against the terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023, continues to appear forsaken, and its pleas are left unheard and unanswered.

The request for full UN membership is nothing new. Palestine first presented the proposal in 2011, but it was never thoroughly discussed due to a lack of support from other UN Security Council members, who were unable to decide whether Palestine’s request satisfied the UN’s accession criteria – namely being a peace-loving state. In 2012, to overcome this impasse, the UN General Assembly de facto recognised the sovereign state of Palestine by upgrading its status from an observer entity to a “non-member state” with 138 votes in favour, nine against, and 41 abstentions. A new lease of life fuelled this endeavour at the beginning of April 2024, when the Palestinian Authority requested that the Security Council re-evaluate its full membership proposal at its April 18 Ministerial Meeting on the Middle East. Arab states showed strong support for this proposal, stating that “membership in the United Nations is a crucial step in the right direction towards a just and lasting resolution of the Palestinian question in line with international law and relevant UN resolutions,” France 24 reported.

The war between Israel and Palestine has entered its sixth month and shows no signs of abetting. Every day, violence persists, buildings and infrastructures are destroyed, and innocent civilians continue to pay a terrible price, losing their homes and lives. More and more people throughout the globe  demand the imposition of a ceasefire, and the beginning of negotiations to resolve the decades-long question of the Palestinian state. Ever since the Oslo Accords of 1993, no real progress has been made.

A two-state solution remains key to bringing an end to lingering tensions in the region and to building  peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine. In the words of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at a Security Council meeting, “Failure to make progress towards a two-state solution will only increase volatility and risk for hundreds of millions of people across the region, who will continue to live under the constant threat of violence.”, as reported in Reuters. We can only hope that through renewed diplomatic efforts that this proposal will be adopted, ushering in a peaceful future for the region.