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The UN General Assembly voted by a wide margin on Friday to grant Palestine new “rights and privileges” and called on the Security Council to favourably reconsider its request to become the 194th member of the United Nations.
The 193-member world body approved the Arab and Palestinian-sponsored resolution by a vote of 143-9 with 25 abstentions.
The United States vetoed a widely backed council resolution on April 18 that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine, a goal the Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked to prevent.
US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood made clear on Thursday that the Biden administration opposed the assembly resolution. The US was among the nine countries voting against it, along with Israel.
“We’ve been very clear from the beginning there is a process for obtaining full membership in the United Nations, and this effort by some of the Arab countries and the Palestinians is to try to go around that,” Wood said Thursday.
“We have said from the beginning the best way to ensure Palestinian full membership in the UN is to do that through negotiations with Israel. That remains our position.”
WATCH: Police disperse pro-Palestine protests at University of Amsterdam
Under the UN Charter, prospective United Nations members must be “peace-loving,” and the Security Council must recommend their admission to the General Assembly for final approval. Palestine became a UN non-member observer state in 2012.
The resolution “determines” that Palestine is qualified for membership — dropping the original language that, in the General Assembly’s judgment, it is “a peace-loving state”. It therefore recommends that the Security Council reconsider its request “favourably”.
The renewed push for full Palestinian membership in the UN comes as the war in Gaza has put the more than 75-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict at centre stage.
At numerous council and assembly meetings, the humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinians in Gaza and the killing of more than 34,000 people in the territory, according to Gaza health officials, have generated outrage from many countries.
Russia and China's concerns
The original draft of the assembly resolution was changed significantly to address concerns not only by the US but also by Russia and China, according to three Western diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations were private.
The first draft would have conferred on Palestine “the rights and privileges necessary to ensure its full and effective participation” in the assembly’s sessions and UN conferences “on equal footing with member states.” It also made no reference to whether Palestine could vote in the General Assembly.
According to the diplomats, Russia and China, which are strong supporters of Palestine’s UN membership, were concerned that granting the list of rights and privileges detailed in an annex to the resolution could set a precedent for other would-be UN members — with Russia concerned about Kosovo and China about Taiwan.
Under longstanding legislation by the US Congress, the United States is required to cut off funding to UN agencies that give full membership to a Palestinian state — which could mean a cut-off in dues and voluntary contributions to the UN from its largest contributor.
The final draft drops the language that would put Palestine “on equal footing with member states.” And to address Chinese and Russian concerns, it would decide “on an exceptional basis and without setting a precedent” to adopt the rights and privileges in the annex.
The draft also adds a provision in the annex on the issue of voting, stating categorically: “The state of Palestine, in its capacity as an observer state, does not have the right to vote in the General Assembly or to put forward its candidature to United Nations organs.”
The final list of rights and privileges in the draft annex includes giving Palestine the right to speak on all issues not just those related to the Palestinians and Middle East, the right to propose agenda items and reply in debates, and the right to be elected as officers in the assembly’s main committees.
It would give the Palestinians the right to participate in UN and international conferences convened by the United Nations — but it drops their “right to vote” which was in the original draft.
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On 22 April, some 5,000 soldiers from seven European countries and the United States took part in a NATO defensive exercise 80 kilometres south of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Part of Operation Steadfast Defender 2024, the largest series of manoeuvres by the Atlantic alliance since the end of the Cold War, to test the inter-operability of forces.
“In line with our regional plan, we are exercising the defence of the eastern flank of Europe”, General Krzysztof Król, advisor to the Polish Army’s Chief of General Staff, told Euronews.
Anxiety on Poland's northeastern border
Our journey takes us further north to the border post of Goldap, just two kilometres from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. It has been closed since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The proximity of NATO forces reassures the area’s inhabitants, but they want to be ready for any eventuality. Piotr Bartoszuk, Headmaster of a Vocational High School in Goldap, shows us the virtual shooting range installed in the school’s basement. Military training, subsidized by the Ministry of Defense, was added to the curriculum this year.
“Everything is done to prepare our society to defend itself in the event of an attack.” says Bartoszuk, “The civil defence act being processed in Poland requires us to educate people, and to build shelters and warning systems in Poland. Whether it’s a science fiction scenario that Putin will attack us or not – it’s good to be prepared.”
Poland urging EU to boost defence
The largest European contributor to military aid to Ukraine, Poland urges its EU partners to step up their support, and boost defence budgets.
“We never had a greater sense of such immediate threat. If we don't stop this fierce war that's happening at the borders of Poland, of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, we might soon be facing a much bigger threat. And it's a threat to every European country”, Cezary Tomczyk, the Polish Vice Minister of Defence, told Euronews.
“The European Union is the largest economy in the world today. We are able to build the capabilities that will allow Europe to be a safe zone and not look around the world for that.”, he added.
Some 80% of arms acquisitions currently come from outside Europe, 60% of which from the United States. Last March, the European Commission proposed a new strategy, aimed at boosting the Union's defence industry.
The European Union’s ambitions are too modest and dangerously slow to materialise, says defence expert ？ukasz Ma？lanka at Warsaw’s Center for Eastern Studies.
“We hear from France. Italy, Germany, words about European defence. But these words aren't followed by deeds”, he told Euronews.
“Today, it doesn't seem likely Putin will start another war with a NATO country. But who knows what will be in two years? We don't know who will be the president of the United States, or if there won't be a populist government in an important European country, which could hamper European efforts to counter Putin's aggression. This can create very comfortable conditions for him to pursue his aggression in Europe,” he warned.
Polish citizens preparing for war
This is a feeling shared by many in Poland. More and more citizens are enrolling in the Polish Territorial Defence forces.
“The risk is very serious because Ukraine is losing the war, and the West is not helping it enough.” Grzegorz Szczepański, a Polish Territorial Defence volunteer, told Valerie Gauriat. “The risk of an invasion in our country is very high.”
“There's awareness of the threat from the “Great Bear” from the East coming back to us. That's why society has started preparing for a worst-case scenario.”, says Senior Corporal Przemys？aw ？uszczki, spokesperson of the Territorial Defence’s Warsaw Brigade, concluding: “We don't want Russia to conquer Europe again. We will be the first to defend her.”
Click on the video above to see the full report.
Polls suggest Europe's Greens are a long way from repeating their successes of the 2019 election, facing the possibility of losing up to 20 seats.
Euronews' Brussels correspondent Grégoire Lory caught up with the Green's co-lead candidate, Terry Reintke, to discuss the current campaign and the challenges facing the ecological movement. He began by asking her about apparent voter disenchantment with the EU's Green Deal and farmers' outright opposition to it.
Helping citizens in green transition
"As green social justice is really at the centre of our political programme, so we want to make sure that any kind of climate measures are also going to be balanced out with, for example, supporting citizens in this transition," Reintke said
"The problems that they [farmers] have do not come from the Green Deal. The problems that they have is that basically with the agricultural model that we have today and also the agricultural policies, of the European Union, with the with the subsidies being distributed in the way they are, they are not having the income that they deserve."
"And for many of them, not the income that they actually need in order to live of what they are doing. So what we want to do is to make agriculture a key issue also in this election campaign, and to say the agricultural policy of the European Union has gone into a wrong direction in the past. Yes, we need to reform it, and we need to make sure that farmers and especially small farmers, get the support that they need."
€200 billion annual investment
In order to advance the transition to a green economy and counter challenges from China in clean energy technologies the Greens are proposing an annual investment of €200 billion in the sector.
"I can tell you one thing. I think if we don't invest now, and we have seen this recently with a study from the Potsdam Institute, the cost that we will have to bear already quite soon, not in 50 years, but already in the next years are much higher than the money we can already now invest into creating a green transformation," Reintke says.
"So for me, not only putting this on one generation, but for example, sustainably using debt and credit in order to finance this transition, which in the long run is going to make our lives cheaper because, for example, wind and solar are energies that make us not only that, make energy not only renewable, but that also make us less dependent on autocrats."
"So we have a lot of interest in doing that. I think that this is the right way to go down. And indeed, if we now have a renaissance of austerity in Europe, this is going to create a too tight space for us to make these investments. And this would be the exact wrong way to go."
Far-right challenge to Green Deal
The EU's climate goals have been targeted by the far-right in this campaign, as never before. They look set to make major gains in June's election and are likely to be a much more powerful force in the next parliament. So, does Reintke think the Green Deal can be saved?
"Well, I will put my energy into making it possible. And I still strongly believe that a very big majority of Europeans understand that it is in their own personal interest that we are ahead of fighting for climate neutrality, to keep this planet liveable for humans, but also in an economic interest that the European Union is not lagging behind China or the US, other global players when it comes to green industry and green economy.
"And this is the argument that I think convinces a lot of people alongside, and especially when I'm travelling and campaigning in Eastern and Central Europe with the security aspect, that the Green Deal is a crucial part of the puzzle of making Europe a more secure continent."
To find out more about what Terry Reintke had to say on other issues, including the EU's migration pact and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, watch the Global Conversation interview in full.