The Palestinians took their new place in the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, now sitting in alphabetical order of states, one of the new rights granted to the delegation which is not a full member of the organisation.
In May, an overwhelming majority of the General Assembly ruled that the Palestinians deserved full membership in the UN, granting them some additional rights in the absence of full membership, which the United States has blocked.
The resolution, which unambiguously excludes the right to vote and to be a member of the Security Council, provides that from the 79e At the assembly’s annual session — which began Tuesday — Palestinians can submit proposals and amendments directly, or take their seats among member states in alphabetical order.
Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour took his seat on Tuesday afternoon in the room at the table marked “State of Palestine” between Sudan and Sri Lanka.
“This is not just a procedural matter, this is a historic moment,” Egyptian Ambassador Osama Mahmoud Abdelkhalek Mahmoud said.
As when the resolution was adopted, Israel, however, denounced this “promotion”.
“Any decision or action that improves the status of the Palestinians, whether in the UN General Assembly or bilaterally, is a reward […] for terrorism in general and for Hamas terrorists in particular,” said Israeli Deputy Ambassador Jonathan Miller.
Faced with the war in Gaza, the Palestinians, who have had “non-member observer state” status since 2012, relaunched their 2011 request in early April to become a full member state of the United Nations.
To succeed, such an initiative requires, before a vote by the General Assembly, a positive recommendation from the Security Council. But the United States, an ally of Israel, vetoed it on April 18.