Security Council revives UN hopes for Palestinian Authority

By Michael Weissenstein The Associated Press

8 months ago

Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour addresses United Nations Security Co ... — Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour addresses United Nations Security Council at U.N. headquarters, Monday, March 25, 2024, after a vote that passed a cease-fire resolution in Gaza during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, its first demand to halt fighting. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour, top left, addresses United Nations Security Council at U.N. headquarters, Monday, March 25, 2024, after a vote that passed a cease-fire resolution in Gaza during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, its first demand to halt fighting. Far right is Gilad Erdan, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council on Monday revived the Palestinian Authority’s hopes of joining the United Nations as a full member.

But the United States said relations between Israel and the Palestinians are far from ripe. That all but quashes the Palestinian Authority’s U.N. membership hopes for now.

The U.S. is one of five permanent members who can veto any council action. Members of its U.N. delegation reiterated Monday that the Palestinian Authority needs to exert control over all of the Palestinian territories and negotiate statehood with Israel before it wins statehood.

The Palestinian Authority administers parts of the West Bank. Its forces were driven from Gaza when Hamas seized power in 2007, and it has no power there.

“The issue of full Palestinian membership is a decision that should be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians,” U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told reporters Monday.

After years of failed on-and-off peace talks, the Palestinians have turned to the United Nations to fulfill their dream of an independent state. Israel says such steps are an attempt to sidestep the negotiating process.

Supporters of the Palestinians’ request for full membership in the United Nations asked the Security Council last week to revive the application for admission submitted in 2011.

Israel’s U.N. ambassador dismissed any possibility of Palestinian statehood, reducing the issue to a question of his country’s very ability to survive.

“From well before the establishment of the U.N., the Palestinians’ goal has be clear: the annihilation of the Jews,” Ambassador Gilad Erdan told reporters. The U.N. was founded in the wake of World War II and “the same genocidal ideology that this body was founded to combat is still prevalent among the Palestinians,” he said.

The Security Council decided to make a formal decision on Palestinian U.N. membership this month and a committee that weighs membership applications will meet again Thursday, said Malta’s U.N. Ambassador Vanessa Frazier, the current Security Council president.