JERUSALEM – The U.N. General Assembly has voted in favor of Palestinian statehood, after the Palestinians asked it to recognize a non-member state of Palestine in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, and the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip.
The resolution upgrading the Palestinians’ status was approved by the 193-member world body late Thursday by a vote of 138-9 with 41 abstentions.
Tensions were running high ahead of the vote, as Israel and the United States warn the move could delay peace in the region.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the General Assembly that it “is being asked today to issue the birth certificate of Palestine,” and the vote is the last chance to save the two-state solution.
Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Ron Prosor, warned the General Assembly that “the Palestinians are turning their backs on peace” and that the U.N. can’t break the 4,000-year-old bond between the people of Israel and the land of Israel.
A country’s vote in favor of the status change does not automatically imply that it’s individual recognition of a Palestine state, something that must be done bilaterally.
The Palestinians said they needed U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the lands Israel captured in 1967, to be able to resume negotiations with Israel. The non-member observer state status could also open the way for possible war crimes charges against the Jewish state at the International Criminal Court.
In a last-ditch move Wednesday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns made a personal appeal to Abbas promising that President Barack Obama would re-engage as a mediator in 2013 if Abbas abandoned the effort to seek statehood. The Palestinian leader refused, said Abbas aide Saeb Erekat.
Ahead of Thursday’s vote, thousands of Palestinians from rival factions celebrated in the streets of the West Bank. Although the initiative will not immediately bring about independence, the Palestinians view it as a historic step in their quest for global recognition.
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