‘Historic’: Ambassadors react after UN vote for Palestine

Following are the reactions of the representatives of various nations to the vote on Friday in favour of Palestine’s UN membership.

Mohamed Issa Abushahab, UAE Ambassador to the United Nations, said that although this was a breakthrough, it was not enough to ensure full representation and membership at the UN. He said, “This resolution alone does not do justice to the State of Palestine, as it only grants additional rights. Palestine will remain an observer state without the right to vote in the General Assembly or put forward its candidature for United Nations organs. Therefore, we call upon the Security Council to respond to the General Assembly, this global body, and the overwhelming majority of the international community by issuing a positive recommendation on the membership of the State of Palestine. This will enable the General Assembly to decide on Palestine’s admission to the United Nations.”

Riyad Mansour, Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, said this was a significant development that justified optimism: “I have stood hundreds of times before at this podium, but never for a more significant vote than the one about to take place, a historic one.”

He added that the vote to acknowledge Palestine’s existence should not be perceived to be against any other state: “The Israeli government is so opposed to it because they oppose our independence and the two-state solution altogether.”

Vasily Nebenzia, Russian ambassador to the United Nations, also expressed support for the vote. “We are convinced that fully-fledged membership of Palestine in the UN would help provide an equal initial negotiating position with Israel, which received this fully-fledged status more than 75 years ago. Indeed, admission of the State of Palestine to the UN would be a first practical step towards a fair resolution to the Palestinian question on a UN-approved platform underpinned by generally recognized international legal foundations.”

On the other side of the spectrum, Gilad Erdan, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, was irate and dismissive. He used the Islamophobic “terrorism” card to play down the resolution:

“With this new precedent, we may see here representatives of ISIS or Boko Haram that will sit among us. You know what? This will be fitting for the new moral standard being set here today, giving the rights of a state to an entity that is already partially controlled by ‘terrorists’ and will be replaced by a force of child-murdering Hamas rapists. Unbelievable, truly unbelievable.”

He continued his rant against the global organization and used strong language, calling Palestinians “terrorists”. “With today’s vote, you are not only bypassing the Security Council in violation of the (United Nations) Charter, but you are bastardizing the meaning of peace-loving. You know that the Palestinians are the exact opposite of peace-loving. You know this. Since they rejected the UN partition plan in 1947, they rejected it. They have only tried to destroy Israel time and again. They are terror-loving, not peace-loving.”

The representative from the US Robert Wood, in tune with the sentiments of the Israeli representative, expressed skepticism. “This resolution does not resolve the concerns about the Palestinian membership application raised in April in the Security Council through the admissions committee process. And should the Security Council take up the Palestinians’ membership application as a result of this resolution, there will be a similar outcome.”

He asserted that the vote does not change much. “The draft resolution does not alter the status of the Palestinians as a non-member state observer mission. Even this unproductive text makes that explicit. As a result of this vote, the Palestinian non-member state observer mission has not gained the right to vote in the General Assembly. It also has not gained the right to put forward candidates in UN organs or to be elected as a member of the Security Council. In short, the Palestinians’ non-member state observer mission does not have the same standing as a member state after this vote.”