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UN General Assembly Backs Palestinian Bid for Membership

Delegates react to the results during the United Nations General Assembly vote on a draft resolution that would recognize the Palestinians as qualified to become a full UN member, in New York City, US, May 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably.”

The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member — a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state — after the United States vetoed it in the UN Security Council last month.

The assembly adopted a resolution with 143 votes in favor and nine against — including the US and Israel — while 25 countries abstained. It does not give the Palestinians full UN membership, but simply recognizes them as qualified to join.

The resolution “determines that the State of Palestine … should therefore be admitted to membership” and it “recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably.”

The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes seven months into a war between Israel and Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“We want peace, we want freedom,” Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the assembly before the vote. “A yes vote is a vote for Palestinian existence, it is not against any state. … It is an investment in peace.”

“Voting yes is the right thing to do,” he said in remarks that drew applause.

Under the founding UN Charter, membership is open to “peace-loving states” that accept the obligations in that document and are able and willing to carry them out.

“As long as so many of you are ‘Jew-hating,’ you don’t really care that the Palestinians are not ‘peace-loving’,” Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan, who spoke after Mansour, told his fellow diplomats. He accused the assembly of shredding the UN Charter — as he used a small shredder to destroy a copy of the Charter while at the lectern.

“Shame on you,” Erdan said.

An application to become a full UN member first needs to be approved by the 15-member Security Council and then the General Assembly. If the measure is again voted on by the council it is likely to face the same fate: a US veto.

Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told the General Assembly after the vote that unilateral measures at the UN and on the ground will not advance a two-state solution.

“Our vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood; we have been very clear that we support it and seek to advance it meaningfully. Instead, it is an acknowledgement that statehood will only come from a process that involves direct negotiations between the parties,” he said.

The General Assembly resolution adopted on Friday does give the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 — like a seat among the UN members in the assembly hall — but they will not be granted a vote in the body.

The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a status that was granted by the UN General Assembly in 2012.

They are represented at the UN by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank. Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in Gaza in 2007. Hamas — which has a charter calling for Israel‘s destruction — launched the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered Israel‘s assault on Gaza.

Erdan said on Monday that, if the General Assembly adopted the resolution, he expected Washington to cut funding to the United Nations and its institutions.

Under US law, Washington cannot fund any UN organization that grants full membership to any group that does not have the “internationally recognized attributes” of statehood. The United States cut funding in 2011 for the UN cultural agency, UNESCO, after the Palestinians joined as a full member.

On Thursday, 25 Republican US senators — more than half of the party’s members in the chamber — introduced a bill to tighten those restrictions and cut off funding to any entity giving rights and privileges to the Palestinians. The bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, which is controlled by President Joe Biden’s Democrats.

The post UN General Assembly Backs Palestinian Bid for Membership first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Kamala Harris Passing on Josh Shapiro for VP Cost Her Jewish Support, Exit Poll Shows

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) holds a rally in support of US Vice President Kamala Harris’ Democratic presidential election campaign in Ambler, Pennsylvania, US, July 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Rachel Wisniewski

US Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed presidential bid could have received more support from Jewish voters had the Democratic nominee selected Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate, an exit poll revealed.

Had Harris picked Shapiro — a popular moderate who is also Jewish — instead of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), she would have won Jewish voters in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania by a margin of 53 percent to 38 percent, according to a survey conducted by the Honan Strategy Group for the Teach Coalition, an affiliate of the Jewish Orthodox Union. The Harris-Walz ticket ultimately won Jewish voters within the Keystone State by a narrower margin of 48 percent to 41 percent. 

The exit poll was first reported by The New York Post earlier this week.

Over the course of her ill-fated campaign, Harris had been dogged by accusations of being both soft on antisemitism and an unreliable ally of Israel. The polling results suggest that selecting Shapiro, a vocal defender of the Jewish state, would have helped bolster some of her support among Jewish citizens. 

Harris’s decision to bypass Shapiro for the vice-presidential nomination elicited surprise, outrage, and even accusations of antisemitism. Many observers perceived Shapiro, a popular governor with charismatic oratory skills, to be a strong choice to compliment Harris on the presidential ticket. 

However, Shapiro’s repeated passionate defenses of the Jewish state and repudiation of anti-Israel protesters infuriated many within the far-left flank of the Democratic Party. In an interview with CNN, Shapiro condemned anti-Israel college campus protesters, saying that such demonstrations would be met with fierce backlash “if this were people dressed up in KKK outfits or KKK regalia.” Shapiro has also backed a Pennsylvania bill that would “financially penalize the government of Israel or commercial financial activity in Israel.”

In the days following Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel ;ast Oct. 7, Shapiro, a practicing Jew, issued statements condemning the Palestinian terrorist group and gave a speech at a local synagogue. The governor also ordered the US and Pennsylvania Commonwealth flags to fly at half mast outside the state capitol to honor the victims.

Then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, now the president-elect, pounced on Harris’s snub of Shapiro, suggesting that she blocked the Pennsylvania governor from the ticket because he is Jewish. Trump argued that Shapiro could anger Muslim voters in critical swing states such as Michigan, especially with a heightened focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict amid the war in Gaza. However, Shapiro defended Harris, claiming that antisemitism had nothing to do with his failed bid to become the Democratic nominee for vice president.

Some commentators suggested that Harris passed over Shapiro because she was worried about his ambition, a lack of chemistry, and the possibility of the governor overshadowing her.

The post Kamala Harris Passing on Josh Shapiro for VP Cost Her Jewish Support, Exit Poll Shows first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Iran Tells IAEA Chief It Will Negotiate but Not Under Pressure

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi meets with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 14, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Iran is willing to resolve outstanding disputes over its nuclear program but won’t succumb to pressure, its foreign minister told the UN nuclear watchdog head on Thursday, as European countries push for diplomacy before Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

“The ball is in the EU/E3 court,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi wrote on X following talks in Tehran with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi, referring to three European countries — France, Britain and Germany — which represent the West alongside the United States at nuclear talks.

“Willing to negotiate based on our national interest and inalienable rights, but not ready to negotiate under pressure and intimidation,” Iranian state media quoted Araqchi as saying. “I hope the other side will adopt a rational policy.”

A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran would send a message to the three European powers through Grossi about Tehran’s seriousness to resolve its nuclear standoff, while stressing that any pressure on Tehran would have the opposite effect.

Diplomats told Reuters on Wednesday that Britain, France, and Germany are pushing for a new resolution against Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency board next week to pressure Tehran over what they view as its poor cooperation.

Grossi, in a televised joint press conference with Iran‘s nuclear chief, urged Tehran to take steps to resolve the remaining issues.

“It is in our power here to take concrete steps that will indicate clearly, to the US and the international community, that we can clarify things and move forward with concrete solutions,” Grossi said.

Grossi met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian for the first time since Pezeshkian was elected in July. The president told Grossi that Tehran was prepared to cooperate with the IAEA to clear up “alleged ambiguities” about Tehran’s nuclear work, state media reported.

Trump’s return to office as US president in January upends nuclear diplomacy with Iran, which had stalled under the outgoing administration of Joe Biden after months of indirect talks.

During Trump’s previous tenure, Washington ditched a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers that curbed Tehran’s nuclear work in exchange for relief from international sanctions.

On Tuesday, Pezeshkian, seen as relatively moderate, said Tehran would not be able to ignore its arch-foe the United States and needs to “handle its enemies with forbearance.”

Trump has not fully spelled out whether he will continue his “maximum pressure” policy on Iran when he takes office.

SOURED RELATIONS

Relations between Tehran and the IAEA have soured over several long-standing issues including Iran barring the agency’s uranium-enrichment experts from the country and its failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.

In August, the agency said Iran‘s production of highly enriched uranium continues and it has not improved cooperation with it, despite a resolution passed by the IAEA Board of Governors in June.

Grossi, who has long sought progress with Tehran over its fast-advancing nuclear work, said: “Inspections are just one chapter of our cooperation and cannot be discussed.”

The US withdrawal from the nuclear pact in 2018 and the reimposition of sanctions prompted Tehran to violate limitations on its uranium enrichment — seen by the West as a disguised effort to develop nuclear weapons capability.

Tehran is now enriching uranium to up to 60 percent fissile purity, close to the roughly 90 percent required for an atom bomb. Tehran says its nuclear work is purely for peaceful purposes.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday that Tehran’s reaction to a resolution could be to limit diplomatic and technical cooperation with the IAEA.

On Friday Grossi is scheduled to visit Iran‘s Natanz nuclear plant and its Fordow site, which is dug into a mountain.

The post Iran Tells IAEA Chief It Will Negotiate but Not Under Pressure first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Greece in Talks With Israel to Develop 2 Billion Euro ‘Iron Dome’

Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from Lebanon towards Israel, amid hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, as seen from Haifa, northern Israel, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Greece is in talks with Israel to develop a 2 billion euro ($2.11 billion) anti-aircraft and missile defense dome, part of a wider push to modernize its armed forces as it recovers from a protracted debt crisis, Greek officials said on Thursday.

The defenses would likely mimic Israel‘s Iron Dome and other systems that intercept short- and long-range missiles launched during strikes from its neighbors amid the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.

Greece is keen to invest in its defenses to keep up with its NATO ally and historic rival Turkey, which is also developing its own air defenses, despite some improvement in relations.

“The plan is to create a multi-layer anti-aircraft and anti-drone system,” one source with knowledge of the issue told Reuters after a closed door briefing with Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias.

“We are in discussions with Israel,” the source said.

A second official confirmed the scale of the potential deal, adding that Greece needs to spend 12.8 billion euros by 2035 to modernize its armed forces.

The air defenses are part of Athens’ 10-year military purchasing plan that includes acquiring up to 40 new F-35 fighter jets and drones from the US, and four Belharra frigates and Rafale jets from France.

“Our effort is for a quick transition of our armed forces to the 21st century,” Defense Minister Dendias said before the Thursday briefing.

Greece currently uses US Patriot and old Russian S-300 systems to protect its airspace.

Despite some thaw in Greece‘s long-troubled relations with Turkey, its much larger eastern neighbor, the two countries remain at odds on a range of issues including sea boundaries, energy resources and airspace in the eastern Mediterranean.

The post Greece in Talks With Israel to Develop 2 Billion Euro ‘Iron Dome’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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