The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 12 in favor, the United States opposed and two abstentions, from the United Kingdom and Switzerland. U.S. allies France, Japan and South Korea supported the resolution.
Auburn coach pleads with protesters to think beyond a chantBronson Woodruff, AFN.net Bruce Pearl, the men's basketball coach at Auburn University, is urging protesting college students to think deeply when they demonstrate and chant slogans against Jews and the State of Israel. Pearl, who is Jewish, was recently interviewed by Campus Reform about the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and how it has affected the Jewish population. That surprise attack was a wake-up call, he said, for Jews who think a second Holocaust is not possible. On the topic of campus protests, Pearl said young people are passionate and searching for a cause. “They want to correct apartheid or oppression, or a lack of freedom, or humanitarian for lesser," he said. The coach also pointed out how homosexual activists – the “LGBTQ community” – are demonstrating in support of Palestinians. “If you are gay and you are in certain parts of areas controlled by Hamas in Gaza, or the Palestinian Authority in certain communities in Samaria, you're going to be killed. That's not allowed,” he said. Olivia Krolczyk, a Campus Reform reporter, tells AFN she hopes college students listen to Pearl and consider his warning about Hamas and Gaza. “I definitely think it's concerning that college students and young adults are supporting a terrorist organization like Hamas,” she says. “And I definitely agree with what he's saying about, you know, LGBTQ people supporting Hamas who would be killed if they were over there. So it really just blows my mind." |
The resolution would have recommended that the 193-member U.N. General Assembly, where there are no vetoes, approve Palestine becoming the 194th member of the United Nations. Some 140 countries have already recognized Palestine, so its admission would have been approved, likely by a much higher number of countries.
U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the Security Council that the veto “does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties."
The United States has “been very clear consistently that premature actions in New York — even with the best intentions — will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people, deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.
Algerian U.N. Ambassador Amar Bendjama, the Arab representative on the council who introduced the resolution, called Palestine’s admission “a critical step toward rectifying a longstanding injustice" and said that “peace will come from Palestine’s inclusion, not from its exclusion.”
In explaining the U.S. veto, Wood said there are “unresolved questions” on whether Palestine meets the criteria to be considered a state. He pointed to Hamas still exerting power and influence in the Gaza strip, which is a key part of the state envisioned by the Palestinians.
Wood stressed that the U.S. commitment to a two-state solution, where Israel and Palestine live side-by-side in peace, is the only path for security for both sides and for Israel to establish relations with all its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia.
“The United States is committed to intensifying its engagement with the Palestinians and the rest of the region, not only to address the current crisis in Gaza, but to advance a political settlement that will create a path to Palestinian statehood and membership in the United Nations,” he said.
