Link to the article – https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-security-council-vote-thursday-palestinian-un-membership-2024-04-18/
Summary – In a vote to determine whether Palestine should be recognized as a state by the U.N., Great Britain and Switzerland abstained from voting, the U.S. rejected, and the remaining 12 members of the council voted yes. The U.S. said that this action does not mean that they object to Palestine’s statehood, but that a two-state agreement is the solution that we want and the only way that we would agree for their statehood. The U.S. are strong advocates for the two-state solution and are pushing for the conflict to be resolved which is why they denied the vote. Palestine’s U.N. representative came out and said the action by the U.S. was “unfair, unethical, and unjustified” while the Israeli representative commended the U.S. veto.
Analysis – It’s a bit perplexing that Palestine is even trying to achieve statehood in a time like now because there is not really a situation where America would recognize them as a state. It’s understandable because it would help them in the conflict but it has about as good of a chance of getting past the U.N. council and the U.S. as a snowball in a forest fire. If Palestine wants statehood their best option is to come to a resolution with Israel, a two-state solution at that, but since that is very unlikely to happen anytime in the near future, their attempts seem futile. It is also a bit ironic that Israel felt the need to comment and say that they supported the action, because it is obvious that they would be happy to see a failure by the country they are currently in conflict with.
Connection to class – This is connected to the idea of social cleavages, and more specifically regional and religious cleavages. Palestine and Israel are two bodies that are in the same region but are very different because of their religion and the area of the region that they are placed in. The different religions and regions make for social divisions, and in the social divisions in this case there are huge disagreements that are leading to war crimes and crimes against humanity because of the hatred formed in the cleavages.