The Ugly Americans

Last week the Americans blocked a move to grant the State of Palestine full membership of the United Nations. The State of Palestine is the autonomous authority that administers part of the Israeli occupied West Bank under agreements that the Israelis and their American masters now conveniently ignore. The motion was moved by Algeria on the 15 member UN Security Council in New York. Twelve members, including People’s China, Russia and France voted for it.  Two – Switzerland and the United Kingdom – shamefully abstained and it was vetoed by the single vote of the United States.
Robert Wood, the American deputy permanent representative to the UN, pathetically said that his country had vetoed the request because there was no unanimity amongst members as to "whether the applicant met the criteria for membership"  – though the only objection was from the United States in the first place.
"Today is a sad day," said Fu Cong, China's permanent representative to the United Nations. "Due to the veto of the United States, Palestine's application to become a full member of the United Nations was rejected, and the Palestinian people's decades-long dream was shattered”.
The Palestinians first applied for full UN membership in 2011 but they failed to secure the necessary nine out of 15 votes in the Security Council. They then went to the all-members UN General Assembly which overwhelmingly agreed to upgrade their status from "UN observer" to "non-member observer state" in November 2012. But hopes of full membership have now been dashed by American imperialism.
"Thirteen years is long enough, but relevant countries are still complaining that there is not enough time and they should not act in a hurry. Such a statement is disingenuous. Now more than ever, it is more urgent than ever to admit Palestine into full membership of the United Nations," said Fu. He said China "cannot agree with" the statement that "the Palestinian state does not have the ability to govern the country".
"The situation in Palestine has undergone many changes in the past 13 years, the most fundamental of which is the continuous expansion of [Zionist] settlements in the West Bank. The living space of Palestine as a country has been continuously squeezed, and the foundation of the two-state solution has been continuously eroded," he said.
"Relevant countries turned a blind eye to this, adopted an attitude of acquiescence or even connivance, and now they are questioning Palestine's ability to govern. This is completely gangster logic that confuses right and wrong," Fu said.
Whether Palestine meets the membership criteria stipulated in the United Nations Charter, and whether Palestine is "peace-loving", is "too much" to ask. "For the Palestinian people who have suffered from occupation, they are nothing short of rubbing salt into the wounds and are a great insult," Fu said. "The establishment of an independent state is the indisputable national right of the Palestinian people, not subject to questioning or bargaining," he added.
At the UN Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy, said “the fact that this resolution did not pass will not break our will, and it will not defeat our determination”. Back in the West Bank Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the American veto that had pushed the region “ever further to the edge of the abyss” was  “unfair, unethical and unjustified”. Indeed it was. It was also, sadly, entirely predictable.