November 15, 2024
John Whitbeck
On May 10, 2024, the UN General Assembly passed overwhelmingly, with only nine negative votes (Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and the United States) a resolution (https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/ltd/n24/129/97/pdf/n2412997.pdf) which “Determinesthat the State of Palestine is qualified for membership in the United Nations and should therefore be admitted to membership in the United Nations” and “Accordingly recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably.”
John Whitbeck
On May 10, 2024, the UN General Assembly passed overwhelmingly, with only nine negative votes (Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and the United States) a resolution (https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/ltd/n24/129/97/pdf/n2412997.pdf) which “Determinesthat the State of Palestine is qualified for membership in the United Nations and should therefore be admitted to membership in the United Nations” and “Accordingly recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably.”
Early
foreign policy appointments, both formally announced and authoritatively
rumored, by President-elect Donald Trump make clear that there is absolutely no
chance that his incoming administration would permit the Security Council to
approve an upgrade in the status of the State of Palestine from observer state
to full member state.
There is, however, one tiny glimmer of hope in this darkness.
On December 23, 2016, after Trump’s first election but before he took office, President Barack Obama instructed his UN ambassador to abstain, and thereby to permit the adoption by a 14-0 vote, in the vote on UN Security Council Resolution 2334 (https://press.un.org/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm), which reaffirmed that Israel’s establishment of settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, had no legal validity, constituting a flagrant violation of international law, and which reiterated the Security Council’s demand that Israel immediately cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.
Obama’s abstention decision constituted an act of insubordination and disobedience which shocked the Israeli government, and it would have been inconceivable at any previous time during his presidency or if Hillary Clinton had been elected to succeed him. One may assume that Obama did not wish virtually has last act as president to be a final demonstration of his contempt for international law and the views and values of the vast majority of mankind.
While Israel could and, unsurprisingly, has ignored UN Security Council Resolution 2334, a UN Security Council resolution approving full UN member state status for the State of Palestine would create a fact that no country could ignore. The occupation of the entire territory of a UN member state by another UN member state, which, in the case of Palestine, the International Court of Justice has recently confirmed (https://www.icj-cij.org/node/204176) is unlawful and must rapidly end, could not be permitted to stand indefinitely or without prompt and significant consequences.
Might Biden, who has been repeatedly humiliated and treated with contempt by Netanyahu notwithstanding his having given Israel everything it has sought, militarily, financially and diplomatically, as it has pursued its genocidal assault against the Palestinian people, follow the Obama precedent and finally assert his personal freedom and independence by instructing his UN ambassador to abstain from a Security Council vote on a new application by the State of Palestine for full UN member state status?
The period between today and January 20 offers the best opportunity for full UN membership which the State of Palestine has ever had, and it may be the last opportunity.
The State of Palestine and its friends throughout the world should try.
John V. Whitbeck is a Paris-based international lawyer.
Mohammed R. Mhawish
The news of Donald Trump’s election victory was received in Gaza with weary resignation. After more than a year of war, displacement, and starvation, Palestinians in the Strip have stopped expecting anything from American leaders — except more of the same. Whether it’s Trump, Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris, hope doesn’t register with us anymore. Instead, each new leader in Washington reinforces the same painful reality: unconditional military aid for Israel and policies that leave Gaza smoldering.
Dr. Rabaa Al-Dreimly, a media studies professor currently displaced in southern Gaza, remembers Trump’s first term vividly. His decision to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem felt “like a curtain falling on the illusion of peace,” she recalls. “It was a clear sign that the United States didn’t intend to act as a neutral mediator, stripping away even the pretense of concern for us.”
For Al-Dreimly, each policy during Trump’s first term — from the embassy move and the “Deal of the Century” to the unending diplomatic and political shielding of Israel — made it clear that the United States wasn’t just abandoning us, but erasing us. When she looks around at Gaza’s ruins today, she sees what years of U.S. support for Israeli violence have done. “Whoever sits in the White House doesn’t change what Gaza lives,” she says, her voice bearing a heavy weight.
Abdul Hadi Aoukal, a Gaza-based political analyst, feels similarly disheartened. For him, Trump’s pledge to end the war rings hollow; it sounds like another chapter in an old story of Washington’s deception and neglect of Palestinian suffering. “They act like we’re invisible,” Aoukal says.
And the people of Gaza know that, in all likelihood, this new chapter will end the same way: with more bombings, more loss, and more empty promises. But nor did Gazans harbor any real hope for a Harris presidency. The vice president has repeatedly backed Israel’s right to defend itself, and we know exactly what that really means: killing our children and destroying our homes without any accountability.
As Biden continued to supply American bombs to Israel’s war machine, Harris was at his side, doing nothing to stop it. “She endorsed these policies,” Aoukal affirms. “Her promises of change were never truly sincere.”
‘The rhetoric of peace is empty to us’
For 55-year-old Salwa Al-Louh, who is currently displaced with her family in the Al-Mawasi area of southern Gaza, the change in American leadership stirs something less than hope and more like tired desperation. She recalls years of U.S. leaders promising peace only to leave Gaza in ruins. “Every American president says they’ll bring peace,” she murmurs, “but each one has looked away.”
After seeing this pattern repeat so many times, Al-Louh has learned to rely only on her family and neighbors, finding strength in small daily acts of care. But as the war drags on and the winter approaches, living in the tent camp — with its rampant illness and biting cold — is growing more unbearable by the day. She dreams only of returning to her home in Al-Shati refugee camp, in northern Gaza. “We’ve had enough death and destruction,” she says. “I want my grandchildren to grow up without fear.”
Khaled Aslih, a Palestinian father of three in southern Gaza, tucks his children into bed each night without any assurance that they’ll be safe by morning. “With Biden, the [Israeli] attacks have only gotten worse,” he laments.
As far as Aslih is concerned, every American promise to end the war is just empty talk — words that don’t change the cold fear he and his family feel as they huddle together, praying that the walls around them will hold up for one more night. “They may say they want peace, but it’s American-made bombs falling on our homes,” he adds.
Nour Baraka, a widow raising four children in a displacement camp, responds to Trump’s victory with an exhausted sigh. “I don’t care who is president there,” she says. “I only want my children to survive.”
Baraka blames the politics of foreign nations, and especially the United States, for having reduced her life to a few square meters of tarp and dirt — a makeshift shelter that doesn’t shield her children from cold, hunger, or loss. Survival, for her, means depending only on each other, not on the distant promises of world leaders.
“Even though Harris’ words about justice for Palestinians sound compassionate, we know better,” Baraka explains. “As vice president, she stood firm with Israel, and had she been elected president she would have been no different. The rhetoric of peace is empty to us. What we need is action, not speeches that only extend our suffering.”
‘We survive on our own here’
Like many young Palestinians, 22-year-old Tareq Shahin has only known Gaza under siege. With hollow promises from U.S. presidents a constant throughout his life, he sees the American policy of arming Israel as not just a political stance but a permanent, unyielding commitment. “America props up Israel like we’re a side effect,” he says quietly, his facial expression betraying his inner anger.
However, Ramadan Al-Akhras, also 22, views Trump’s win with cautious optimism, albeit tainted by skepticism. “We don’t want anyone like Biden again,” he says. “His support for Israel destroyed Gaza, with all those American bombs falling on us.”
A university student from Khan Younis, Al-Akhras describes the constant power outages, lack of medicine, and scarcity of food that have defined his past year. He watches American elections like a spectator in a game where his own life is what’s at stake — knowing that, in the end, promises made on the campaign trail are rarely kept. Each new promise is only a reminder of the painful irony that as bombs fall, America continues to speak of peace.
Yasser Al-Madhoun, a father of five, remains in his ravaged home in northern Gaza while the rest of his family are displaced in the south. “We follow these elections because any change matters to us here in Gaza,” he says, but in the kind of flat tone that accompanies repeated disappointment. “We don’t want speeches or sympathy. We want an end to this endless war, to see our families safe in one place again.”
Whether in Gaza, anywhere else in occupied Palestine, or in exile, Palestinians have learned the hard way that U.S. policies and speeches don’t soften our daily struggle. Samer Abu Deqa, a farmer, is currently displaced in the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis. His barren fields in the east of the city are now a testament to a life’s work erased by bombs. Once fertile and green, his land is now a graveyard of his past efforts, scarred by airstrikes that make any hope feel hollow. “We survive on our own here,” he says.
“I wouldn’t have expected anything different from Harris as president,” Abu Deqa continued. “The United States has never cared about us, and she would have been the same. The bloodshed we’ve endured under her and Biden’s watch shows that American leaders will never stand up for us. We will have to continue surviving on our own, without illusions of foreign help.”
Ruwaida Amer & Ibtisam Mahdi contributed to this article.
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