[Still,
the General Assembly vote — 138 countries in favor, 9 opposed and 41 abstaining
— showed impressive backing for the Palestinians at a difficult time. It was
taken on the 65th anniversary of the vote to divide the former British mandate
of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, a vote Israel considers
the international seal of approval for its birth. ]
By Ethan
Bronner And Christine
Hauser
UNITED
NATIONS — More than 130 countries voted on Thursday to upgrade Palestine to a nonmember observer
state of the United Nations, a triumph for Palestinian diplomacy and a sharp
rebuke to the United States and Israel.
But
the vote, at least for now, did little to bring either the Palestinians or the
Israelis closer to the goal they claim to seek: two states living side by side,
or increased Palestinian unity. Israel and the militant group Hamas both
responded critically to the day’s events, though for different reasons.
The
new status will give the Palestinians more tools to challenge Israel in
international legal forums for its occupation activities in the West Bank,
including settlement-building, and it helped bolster the Palestinian Authority,
weakened after eight days of battle between its rival Hamas and Israel.
But
even as a small but determined crowd of 2,000 celebrated in central Ramallah in
the West Bank, waving flags and dancing, there was an underlying sense of
concerned resignation.
“I
hope this is good,” said Munir Shafie, 36, an electrical engineer who was
there. “But how are we going to benefit?”
Still,
the General Assembly vote — 138 countries in favor, 9 opposed and 41 abstaining
— showed impressive backing for the Palestinians at a difficult time. It was
taken on the 65th anniversary of the vote to divide the former British mandate
of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, a vote Israel considers
the international seal of approval for its birth.
The
past two years of Arab uprisings have marginalized the Palestinian cause to
some extent as nations that focused their political aspirations on the
Palestinian struggle have turned inward. The vote on Thursday, coming so soon
after the Gaza fighting, put
the Palestinians again — if briefly, perhaps — at the center of international
discussion.
“The
question is, where do we go from here and what does it mean?” Salam Fayyad, the
Palestinian prime minister, who was in New York for the vote, said in an
interview. “The sooner the tough rhetoric of this can subside and the more this
is viewed as a logical consequence of many years of failure to move the process
forward, the better.” He said nothing would change without deep American
involvement.
President
Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian
Authority, speaking to the assembly’s member nations, said, “The General
Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of
the state of Palestine,” and he condemned what he called Israeli racism and
colonialism. His remarks seemed aimed in part at Israel and in part at Hamas.
But both quickly attacked him for the parts they found offensive.
“The
world watched a defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious
propaganda against the Israel Defense Forces and the citizens of Israel,” Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel responded. “Someone who wants peace does
not talk in such a manner.”
While
Hamas had officially backed the United Nations bid of Mr. Abbas, it quickly
criticized his speech because the group does not recognize Israel.
“There
are controversial issues in the points that Abbas raised, and Hamas has the
right to preserve its position over them,” said Salah al-Bardaweel, a spokesman
for Hamas in Gaza, on Thursday.
“We
do not recognize Israel, nor the partition of Palestine, and Israel has no
right in Palestine,” he added. “Getting our membership in the U.N. bodies is
our natural right, but without giving up any inch of Palestine’s soil.”
Israel’s
ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, spoke after Mr. Abbas and said he
was concerned that the Palestinian Authority failed to recognize Israel for
what it is.
“Three
months ago, Israel’s prime minister stood in this very hall and extended his
hand in peace to President Abbas,” Mr. Prosor said. “He reiterated that his
goal was to create a solution of two states for two peoples, where a
demilitarized Palestinian state will recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
“That’s
right. Two states for two peoples. In fact, President Abbas, I did not hear you
use the phrase ‘two states for two peoples’ this afternoon. In fact, I have
never heard you say the phrase ‘two states for two peoples’ because the
Palestinian leadership has never recognized that Israel is the nation-state of
the Jewish people.”
The
Israelis also say that the fact that Mr. Abbas is not welcome in Gaza, the
Palestinian coastal enclave run by Hamas, from which he was ejected five years
ago, shows that there is no viable Palestinian leadership living up to its
obligations now.
As
expected, the vote won backing from a number of European countries, and was a
rebuff to intense American and Israeli diplomacy. France, Spain, Italy and
Switzerland all voted yes. Britain and Germany abstained. Apart from Canada, no
major country joined the United States and Israel in voting no. The other
opponents included Palau, Panama and Micronesia.
Susan
E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, was dismissive of the
entire exercise. “Today’s grand pronouncements will soon fade,” she said. “And
the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their
lives has changed, save that the prospects of a durable peace have only
receded.”
A
major concern for the Americans is that the Palestinians may use their new
status to try to join the International Criminal Court. That prospect
particularly worries the Israelis, who fear that the Palestinians may press for
an investigation of their practices in the occupied territories widely viewed
as violations of international law.
Saeb
Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said that after the vote “life will
not be the same” because “Palestine will become a country under occupation.”
“The
terms of reference for any negotiations become withdrawal,” Mr. Erekat said.
Another
worry is that the Palestinians may use the vote to seek membership in
specialized agencies of the United Nations, a move that could have consequences
for the financing of the international organizations as well as the Palestinian
Authority itself. Congress cut off financing to the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as Unesco, in 2011 after it
accepted Palestine as a member. The United States is a major contributor to
many of these agencies and is active on their governing boards.
In
response to the Palestinian bid, a bipartisan group of senators said Thursday
that they would introduce legislation that would cut off foreign aid to the
authority if it tried to use the International Criminal Court against Israel,
and close the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington if
Palestinians refused to negotiate with Israel.
Calling
the Palestinian bid “an unhealthy step that could undermine the peace process,”
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said that he and the
other senators, including Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, would be
closely monitoring the situation.
The
vote came shortly after an eight-day Israeli military assault on Gaza that
Israel described as a response to stepped-up rocket fire into Israel. The
operation killed scores of Palestinians and was aimed at reducing the arsenal
of Hamas in Gaza, part of the territory that the United Nations resolution
expects to make up a future state of Palestine.
The
Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, was politically weakened by the Gaza
fighting, with its rivals in Hamas seen by many Palestinians as more willing to
stand up to Israel and fight back. That shift in sentiment is one reason that
some Western countries gave for backing the United Nations resolution, to
strengthen Mr. Abbas and his more moderate colleagues in their contest with
Hamas.
Jennifer
Steinhauer contributed reporting from Washington, Isabel Kershner from
Jerusalem, and Khaled Abu Aker from Ramallah, West Bank.
