US Stands in The Way of Palestinians Aiming to Gain Full UN Member State Status

By Staff, Agencies

Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour is once again seeking full member state status at the UN, but the occupied country is facing an uphill battle amid US efforts to thwart such goal.

The Palestinian envoy recognized that convincing the US and other Security Council members to advance granting the State of Palestine full member status to the General Assembly for a vote would take much work.

Given the political sensitivity of such a move, Mansour refused to offer a timeline for when his office would formally submit a resolution to the Security Council, saying the Palestinians were still in consultations with various member states and that they would advance the measure “whenever we feel that the situation is ripe.”

A year earlier, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] voted to grant membership to the State of Palestine. This triggered Congressional legislation that required the severing of US funding to the agency.

Former president Donald Trump pulled the US out of UNESCO entirely in 2019 over its purported anti-‘Israel’ bias, but his successor Joe Biden has taken steps to rejoin the agency in order to counter China’s influence.

Congress over the years has added clauses to annual budget legislation, which would strip the Palestinian Authority of US aid if it obtains UN member status.

The US stopped giving direct aid to the PA in 2014, and redirected its funding to US-run projects on the ground as well as to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.