Why Palestinian membership in the UN promises to be difficult

Palestine in search of recognition on the international scene. This Tuesday, April 2, Palestinian leaders officially relaunched the procedure to become a full member of the United Nations. This request, which dates from 2011, was renewed to the UN Secretary General by Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN. Many observers are skeptical about the chances of seeing such an approach come to fruition. Can Palestine truly win its case? What would such a membership change in concrete terms for Israel's sworn enemy?

This request is not new. The first to have formulated it was the president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas in September 2011. But the procedure for “the accession of the State of Palestine to the UN” never came to an end. However, in November 2012, the Palestinian leaders finally obtained observer status. A separate status, which the Vatican State also enjoys. Without forgetting the particular cases of the Order of Malta and the European Union, also observer members, but as sovereign entities and not as States.

A priori, the procedure for a state to join the UN does not work in favor of Palestine. It in fact presupposes a positive recommendation from the Security Council, whose five permanent members - China, United States, France, United Kingdom, Russia - have the famous right of veto. “It is likely that the United States will use its veto,” said David Khalfa, co-director of the North Africa and Middle East Observatory and specialist in the Middle East. Even if this first step were successfully completed, the approach would still have to be the subject of a decision by the United Nations General Assembly by a two-thirds majority.

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In reality, Palestine's entry into the UN as a full member state raises the question of recognition on the international scene of a Palestinian state. “The conditions for becoming a full member of the UN are legally defined,” underlines David Rigoulet-Roze, associate researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (Iris) and specialist in the Middle East. Only a sovereign state can be admitted, which requires defined borders and administered by a unified government.

Does Palestine meet these criteria? David Rigoulet-Roze is skeptical. “The Oslo Accords were intermediate agreements, awaiting a final agreement which never materialized and which was supposed to precisely define borders,” he recalls. Furthermore, there are two distinct territorial entities - the Gaza Strip and the West Bank - with two distinct governances, the legal governance of the Palestinian Authority having been expelled manu militari from the Gaza Strip by Hamas in 2007. Finally, the problem remains of knowing by what authority the population feels represented.”

In a word, the problem would be less that of the legitimacy of the request for membership in the UN than that of its legality. Researcher in Political Science and International Relations at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), Amélie Ferey is less definitive. “These are almost the same arguments that we oppose to Ukraine to enter NATO,” argues the specialist in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not to mention that the political context could allow a certain flexibility with regard to the rules and entry criteria.

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One thing is certain, this adhesion does not go without saying. All observers agree that the Palestinian leaders are perfectly aware of this. So what is their objective, if they know that their request has a high chance of not being successful? “The Palestinian leaders want to take advantage of Israel's increased international isolation,” David Rigoulet-Roze wants to believe. It is both a communications operation aimed at the international community and a desire to reaffirm the legitimacy of a national aspiration.”

The objective of the UN being to organize relations between States on the basis of law and not violence, becoming a full member of the organization amounts to being recognized as a fully legitimate State. “The Palestinian authority wants to capitalize on the wave of global sympathy generated by the suffering of the Gazan population to position Palestine as a legitimate actor in the international system,” adds Amélie Feray.

“This strategy of internationalization of the conflict has been classic on the part of the Palestinian Authority since 2014,” analyzes David Khalfa. It implicitly reveals the failure of attempts at peace.” This allows us to understand the probable veto of the United States. “The Biden administration wants Israel, if not to recognize, at least to give an agreement in principle for the recognition of a Palestinian state, in exchange for which the Arab-Muslim countries of the region would normalize their relations with Israel,” explains David Khalfa .

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An ambitious and unthinkable project as long as the war and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu are in power. Indeed, Tel Aviv clearly rejects a two-state solution, not to mention that the Israeli parliament voted massively in February against any “unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state”. “The Americans therefore hope that after the war, the elections will allow Netanyahu to turn the page,” continues the co-director of the North Africa and Middle East Observatory. However, not opposing this Palestinian strategy of internationalization would amount to pushing Israeli opinion into the arms of the nationalist right.”

Although it is probable, this veto by Washington is not certain either. “An abstention by the United States in the Security Council cannot be ruled out either,” suggests David Khalfa. If this support is formulated in a very general way, recalling only the objective of a two-state solution, without reference to the explosive subjects of borders, Jerusalem, or refugees, an abstention from Washington is perhaps possible. “It would be a slap in the face of the Netanyahu government and the choice to isolate it even further.”

In addition to a considerable step forward in the recognition of its legitimacy on the international scene, Palestine's accession as a full member of the UN would obviously allow it to take part in the votes of the General Assembly or to sit in committee. “This would give the Palestinians more latitude to make their cause heard,” summarizes Amélie Feray.

Finally, the impossibility of this accession should perhaps be qualified to the extent that several European countries - Spain, United Kingdom, France - have recently raised the possibility of studying recognition of Palestine. In February, Emmanuel Macron declared that such recognition was no longer a “taboo”. France even submitted a draft resolution on Gaza to the Security Council, citing the “intention to welcome the State of Palestine as a full member of the UN”.