UN Security Council rejects Palestinian statehood resolution

Resolution fails to achieve required 9-vote majority; 8 countries vote in favor, 2 oppose, 5 abstain; no US veto needed.

By Ben Ariel, INN

Jordan’s envoy to the United Nations said Tuesday night that her country would continue to pressure the international community to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) resolution being defeated at the Security Council.

The United States’ envoy said that the resolution was not a constructive step nor was it a replacement for negotiations.

Both envoys spoke after the PA’s resolution calling for Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria by 2017 was defeated in the Security Council.

Jordan’s UN Ambassador Dina Kawar, the Arab representative on the Security Council, said after the vote, “The fact that this draft resolution was not adopted will not at all prevent us from proceeding to push the international community, specifically the United Nations, towards an effective involvement to achieving a resolution to this conflict.”

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power explained, meanwhile, “We voted against this resolution not because we are comfortable with the status quo. We voted against it because … peace must come from hard compromises that occur at the negotiating table.”

“The United States every day searches for new ways to take constructive steps to support the parties in making progress toward achieving a negotiated settlement,” she added. “The Security Council resolution put before us today is not one of those constructive steps.”

The resolution, continued Power, ” is deeply imbalanced and contains many elements that are not conducive to negotiations between the parties, including unconstructive deadlines that take no account of Israel’s legitimate security concerns.”

The unilateral resolution failed to pass the Security Council after only eight countries voted in favor of the resolution, one short of the nine required to pass it. Two countries voted against, and there were five abstentions.

France, China and Russia were among the countries that supported the text. Australia and the United States voted against.

According to The Associated Press (AP), it was Nigeria which made the difference in the resolution failing to pass, as it had expected to vote in favor but then decided to abstain.

The resolution failed to pass despite earlier claims by the PA that it had the necessary nine-vote majority to enable it to pass the resolution calling for recognition of a “Palestinian state” as well as an Israeli withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem by the end of 2017.

The PA’s UN observer, Riyad Mansour, responded to the defeat by accusing the Security Council of being “paralyzed” adding that it was time to end the “abhorrent Israeli occupation and impunity that has brought our people so much suffering.”

“The result of today’s vote shows that the Security Council as a whole is clearly not ready and willing to shoulder its responsibilities in a way that would … allow us to open the doors to for peace. It is thus most regrettable that the Security Council remains paralyzed,” he charged.

Meanwhile, the Middle East Adviser for the Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN, Israel Nitzan, made a short statement after the vote in which he told the PA that statehood cannot be achieved using provocations.

“The Palestinians have found every possible opportunity to avoid direct negotiations. They have engaged in a never-ending string of political games and now they are parading into this Council with preposterous unilateral proposals,” he said.

“I have news for the Palestinians – you cannot agitate and provoke your way to a state,” continued Nitzan.

“I urge the Council to stop indulging the Palestinians and put an end to their march of folly,” he concluded.