Previous session of the UN Security Council (French)
On Monday, the UN Security Council referred the Palestinian Authority’s request for full membership in the international organization to the committee concerned with accepting new members, while Washington said that Palestine’s membership should be negotiated with Tel Aviv, amid Israel’s rejection of the Palestinian membership request.
Malta's UN Ambassador Vanessa Fraser suggested that the committee meet on Monday to consider the request, given that Malta holds the presidency of the Security Council for the current month.
For his part, Deputy Permanent US Representative to the United Nations Robert Wood said that Palestine's full membership in the international organization is an issue that should be "negotiated between Israel and Palestine," stressing that his country's position on this issue has not changed.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, strongly condemned Palestine’s request to join the international organization, considering that approval of this request would be “the ugliest reward for the most heinous crimes,” as he put it.
He considered that granting the Palestinians a state contradicts the idea of "reaching a permanent solution" to the conflict through negotiations, which are negotiations that have been stalled for a decade.
On April 2, the Permanent Representative of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, sent a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, requesting that the membership application be reconsidered.
Mansour said that all the Palestinians ask for is to take their rightful place within the international community, expressing his hope for a Security Council vote on April 18.
For the request to be successful, it must first obtain a positive recommendation from the Security Council, i.e. at least 9 votes in favor, without the use of veto power from a permanent member state, then a two-thirds majority vote in the General Assembly.
Since 2012, Palestine has enjoyed the status of a “non-member observer state.”
But observers doubt that the initiative will pass the Council because of the position of the United States, which previously opposed this trend in 2011.
Source: Agencies