By Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist ——Bio and Archives--April 22, 2024
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On April 18th, Algeria, a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, submitted a draft resolution recommending to the General Assembly that Palestine be admitted to the UN as a full member state. It is currently an observer state with no voting powers. Fortunately, the Biden administration showed some backbone this time and exercised its veto power to prevent the draft resolution from passing. Twelve countries voted in favor of the resolution. France disgraced itself as one of the countries voting in favor of the Palestinians’ bid for full UN membership. Two countries, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, abstained.
The United States representative to the UN expressed the U.S.’s support for a two-state solution as part of a comprehensive peace agreement emerging from direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He said, however, that “premature actions” at the UN will not achieve true statehood for the Palestinian people, adding that there were questions whether the Palestinians had met the new membership criteria outlined in Article 4 of the UN Charter. More needed to be done, he added, to help establish the attributes demonstrating the Palestinians’ readiness for........