In 2011, then-U.S. President Barack Obama told the BBC that it was clear he could not and would not back the efforts of Palestinians to get unilateral recognition of statehood from the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
However, the Palestinian Authority (PA) had already gotten full diplomatic representation. On May 10, the UNGA backed a Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the U.N. Security Council reconsider the matter favorably.
Such a pivotal process began 36 years ago when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) vociferously declared Palestinian independence in Algiers in 1988, followed by the outdated Oslo Accords in 1993. At the 2000 Camp David talks, U.S. officials and Israel's then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak blamed late PA President Yasser Arafat for the discussion's failure. Today, Washington continues to rhetorically support a two-state solution amid the ongoing violence and systematic massacres in the Gaza Strip led by the Israeli Army since Oct. 8, following the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on Oct. 7 conducted by Palestinian resistance factions in the besieged territory.
The Democrat administration has vetoed a Palestinian request to the U.N. Security Council for full U.N. membership for a second time, blocking the UNGA's recognition of a Palestinian state. Washington's stance insists that the policy toward a Palestinian state must emerge from negotiations encompassing all aspects of the Middle East peace process. However, progress has been hindered by the Jewish state’s leaders' denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
Thus, the Palestinian people and the resistance groups' resilience have been demonstrating that Palestinians are within a liberation war’s parameters and objectives. This is a result of 76 years of harsh occupation and acculturation, despite the dire humanitarian situation and destruction of the entire Gaza Strip’s infrastructure, health care, public administration, schools, and millennium cultural and religious national heritage. In other words, Gaza is obliterated.
What is the difference now? The Arab Street is at a fully ebullient stage, enjoying the fragrant breeze of the American and Western universities Hirak (mobility). Israelis, though, are raising up against their premier and his extremist messianic government, and calling for the liberation of Israeli military and civilian captives by the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip. For the first time in its history, Israeli leaders are being questioned about their national security failures, and there is a demystification of their army following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7.
Israel’s leaders are blaming the Arab states' facilitators, notably Qatar, for not pressing Hamas political leaders in Doha, scaring biased Western leaders regarding the resistance groups in the Gaza Strip, the occupied territories and the region in general. Meanwhile, the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has increased since Oct. 8 because of the outmatched military hysterical aggression in the Gaza Strip.
Obama's Cairo speech in 2009 pushed for detente with the Arab and Muslim worlds, knowing that the core of this detente wouldn't be without genuine support for the Palestinian state. The speech was welcomed and full of rhetoric "a la Obama style!" But Palestinians and Obama sympathizers in the U.S. and across the MENA region felt that the time had come to test his sincerity on this issue. He was very cautious about his reelection in 2012, like U.S. President Joe Biden in 2024, who is held hostage to the zionist lobby in Washington, and his dogmatic commitment toward the Jewish state.
At the same time, the Israeli extremist messianic government is ardently countering the Palestinians' efforts to restore the old narrative of lack of “partnership,'' preferring a process of permanent tensions and short wars over any progress to the Palestinian state and Palestinian people’s rights. Nonetheless, the Palestinians are tersely intending to move forward with a unilateral step at the U.N., again proof there is no partner for serious talks.
So, the UNGA on May 10 voted on a resolution that effectively made Palestine a member state of the U.N., after Biden vetoed a resolution at the U.N. Security Council earlier last month that sought to admit Palestine as a full member. Thus, the UNGA did pass the draft with a landslide vote victory for the Palestinian people, which will further show how isolated Washington is on this legitimate matter.
The Palestinian cause is getting more support because of the emotional reaction of the U.S. and their global north allies to the Oct. 7 Palestinian resistance operation, giving the extremists in Israel carte blanche to apply their vengeance military operation doctrine in the Gaza Strip. Yet, the Palestinian resistance did drag the Israeli leaders and their backers into a military quagmire in the Gaza Strip, showing a new posture of a real power struggle in the aftermath of the ongoing lame indirect negotiations process between the Palestinian resistance and Israelis under the watch of the Qataris, Egyptians and the Americans.
The latest military developments in the battlefield imperative are putting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Washington, London and Brussels in panic mode. They have been blaming the Palestinian resistance, in particular the political branch of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas), for being obstructionists in the indirect talks.
Israel's ambassador to the U.N. went nuts to the point of ridiculing himself in a sound bite speech, condemning Palestine's bid to fully join the U.N. on the May 10 UNGA vote, and he even dared to shred the U.N. charter.
This unprecedented vote shows, once again, how isolated the Jewish state and the U.S. democrat administration are. The resolution was overwhelmingly passed 143 in favor, 25 abstentions and nine against including the U.S.
Hence, last month the U.S. decision to veto the legitimate Palestinian request drew rebukes from the world and across the MENA region. The Palestinian U.N. ambassador condemned the U.S. veto as “unfair, unethical and unjustified,” while the Algerian ambassador said with inexhaustible determination, "We won’t get tired until Palestine gets full recognition of membership in the U.N."
Whereas, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Barbara Woodward, said: “We believe that such recognition of Palestinian statehood should not come at the start of a new process, but it doesn’t have to be at the very end of the process.”
But, on May 10, the UNGA did unmask Washighton’s Palestine’s rhetoric policy for good. Israel was born after a UNGA vote in 1948 with the support of a Democrat administration, under the U.N. Charter that today Israel’s amateurish U.N. diplomat shredded.
In sum, the dynamic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s equation has shifted to new regional parameters that are no longer determined by an Israeli-Arab conflict due to the normalization process launched by the U.S.
Former President Donald Trump, whose long-term strategy was to bring more Arab states to this process to bear the Palestinian cause, is now fully supported by the democratic administration of Biden.
Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’s consequences have created new political, geopolitical and geo-economics imperatives in the region.
The ongoing worldwide student-led Hirak in universities has ushered in a new era, rejecting the notion that double standards or hypocrisy should dictate U.S.-Palestine policy priorities.
The veto by Obama's administration, similar to the current Democratic administration's action, has embarrassed the world body, portraying U.S. obstructionism in the U.N. Security Council and diminishing its credibility, reminiscent of the League of Nations. As U.S. President John F. Kennedy once stated, "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills. Because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."
It is clear that subsequent efforts and courage of the Palestinians and the righteous in the world to strive to resolve the just cause of the Palestinian people will be pursued, and the demand for such a state will not go away.
