The United States exercised its permanent veto on April 18 of a United Nations Security Council resolution that would make the Palestinian territories a U.N. member state.
Currently, the Palestinian Authority has nonmember observer status at the United Nations that limits its participation at the international body such as casting votes on resolutions.
With its permanent veto, the United States can unilaterally defeat any resolution even if the majority of the 15-member council votes in favor of it. The UK, China, Russia, and France also have a permanent veto.
U.S. State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters on April 18 that the United States would veto the resolution upgrading the Palestinian Authority’s status at the U.N.
He said that the United States has “made clear” since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that “sustainable peace in the region can only be achieved through a two-state solution [between the Israelis and Palestinians] with Israel’s security guaranteed.” This, he said, is “the most expeditious path” for the Palestinians to have a state.
Mr. Patel went on to say that “premature actions” by the U.N. “will not achieve a statehood for the Palestinian people.”
He noted there was no unanimous agreement among the U.N. admission committee as to whether the Palestinian Authority met the membership criteria under Article Four of the U.N. Charter.
That charter reads that “membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations” and that “the admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.”
Mr. Patel also noted that the United States has “long called on the Palestinian Authority to undertake necessary reforms” in order for the Palestinian territories to be recognized as a state. He also said that the terrorist group Hamas controls Gaza, “which would be an integral part of the envisioned state in this resolution.”
Additionally, Mr. Patel said, U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state would require the United States to eliminate all of its financial support for the U.N. in accordance with federal law.
Supporters of the Palestinians’ request for full U.N. membership asked the Security Council earlier this month to revive the application for admission submitted in 2011.
Israel’s U.N. ambassador has dismissed any possibility of Palestinian statehood, reducing the issue to a question of his country’s very ability to survive.
“It was a historic moment then, and now that historic moment has been revived again,” Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour told reporters.
The Palestinian Authority administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Its forces were driven from Gaza when Hamas seized power in 2007, and it has no power there.
After the Palestinians’ initial bid for full U.N. membership was rejected, they went to the 193-member General Assembly, where there are no vetoes, and by more than a two-thirds majority succeeded in having their status raised from a U.N. observer to a nonmember observer state in November 2012.
