Australia one of 143 countries to support Palestinian bid for full UN membership

The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favour of a resolution recognising Palestinians as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council reconsider the matter.
Australia and 142 other members of the General Assembly voted in favour of the resolution, while nine — including the US and Israel — voted against it. Twenty-five members abstained.

The United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognising it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council reconsider the matter.

The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member — a move that would effectively recognise a Palestinian state — after the United States vetoed it in the UN Security Council last month
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The assembly adopted a resolution with 143 votes in favour — including Australia — and nine against — including the US and Israel. Twenty-five countries abstained.
The resolution does not give the Palestinians full UN membership, but simply recognises them as qualified to join.

The resolution “determines that the State of Palestine … should therefore be admitted to membership” and it “recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favourably”.

The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes seven months into a war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, which the UN considers to be illegal.

“We want peace, we want freedom,” Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the assembly before the vote.

“A yes vote is a vote for Palestinian existence, it is not against any state … It is an investment in peace.”

Under the founding UN Charter, membership is open to “peace-loving states” that accept the obligations in that document and are able and willing to carry them out.
Israeli UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan, who spoke after Mansour, accused the assembly of shredding the UN Charter – as he used a small shredder to destroy a copy of the charter while at the lectern.

“Shame on you,” Erdan said.
What does the resolution do for Palestine in the UN?
The General Assembly’s adoption of the resolution grants Palestine the right to seven changes to its status in the UN later this year.

Those include the ability to make statements on behalf of a group, submit proposals and amendments and introduce them, and co-sponsor proposals and amendments, including on behalf of a group.

It also grants them “full and effective participation” in UN conferences and international conferences and meetings convened under the auspices of the General Assembly or other appropriate UN organs.

The Palestinians can also propose items to be included in the provisional agenda of the regular or special sessions, and gives members of the delegation of the State of Palestine the right to be elected as officers in the plenary and the main committees of the General Assembly.
What happens next?
The General Assembly resolution does give the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 — like a seat among the UN members in the assembly hall — but they will not be granted a vote in the body.

The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de facto recognition of statehood that was granted by the UN General Assembly in 2012.

They are represented at the UN by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank.

An application to become a full UN member first needs to be approved by the 15-member Security Council and then the General Assembly.

If the measure is voted on again by the council it is likely to face the same fate it did in April: a US veto.

Deputy US ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told the General Assembly after the vote that unilateral measures at the UN and on the ground would not advance a two-state solution.

“Our vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood; we have been very clear that we support it and seek to advance it meaningfully.

Instead, it is an acknowledgement that statehood will only come from a process that involves direct negotiations between the parties,” he said.