Palestinian bid for UN membership still faces hurdles despite overwhelming support: experts

Palestine's bid to become a full United Nations member still faces challenges after the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to recognize it as qualified to join and recommended the UN Security Council to "reconsider the matter favorably," analysts said.

The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member, a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state.

The assembly adopted a resolution with 143 votes in favor and nine against – including the U.S. and Israel – while 25 countries abstained. It does not give the Palestinians full UN membership, but simply recognizes them as qualified to join.

Despite facing significant pressure from domestic and international public opinion, the United States may once again exercise its veto power to block Palestine's full entry into the UN, Shu Meng, a postdoctoral fellow at the Middle East Studies Institute of Shanghai International Studies University, told The Paper, a Shanghai-based Chinese-language online newspaper.

Last month, the U.S. vetoed a draft resolution that recommended to the UN General Assembly that "the State of Palestine be admitted to membership" of the UN. Britain and Switzerland abstained, while the remaining 12 council members voted in favor.

Washington, which views Israel as its closest ally in the Middle East and supports Israel's ongoing war in Gaza, has persistently used its veto power to defend Israeli interests.

"We do not see that doing a resolution in the Security Council will necessarily get us to a place where we can find... a two-state solution moving forward," said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

The U.S. veto was condemned by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as "unfair, unethical, and unjustified."

The Israeli-Palestinian issue has been brought to the fore after Israel, prompted by an attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7 last year, waged a major offensive into the Gaza Strip.

Friday's resolution essentially further systematizes the main content of previous United Nations Security Council Resolutions 2712, 2720, and 2728, and strives towards admitting Palestine as a formal member state, Yu Guoqing, a research fellow at the Institute of West Asian and African Studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Beijing News, a Chinese-language news website.

This shows that the international community has already visibly seen that the obstruction to Palestine becoming a formal UN member comes from only a few countries such as the United States and Israel, he said.

But UN General Assembly resolutions do differ from those of the Security Council in that they lack enforceability, Yu said, adding that Friday's resolution essentially passes the ball back to the Security Council.

Since the United States would most likely still veto it, any immediate progress on this issue is difficult, he added.

For Palestine, joining the UN is equivalent to receiving recognition of its sovereignty from other countries. This means that when Palestine is violated, the international community may pay more attention due to its status as a sovereign state, Shu explained.

"However, this does not increase Palestine's leverage against Israel. In the long run, even if Palestine gains UN membership, it will not play a significant role in promoting a fair and just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, given Israel's disregard for UN authority and overwhelming international public opinion pressure," Shu said.

(With input from agencies)