Brown indicates the nine countries which voted against: Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Nauru, Palau, Panama, and United States.
Yellow indicates the countries which abstained.
Green indicates those for and blue indicates those absent. Grey: non-UN members.
Yesterday 138 out of the 193 countries who are members of the UN (United Nations General Assembly) voted to recognize Palestine as a state, giving it the status of “non-member observer state” and so now with this recognition Palestine can apply to join the UN as a member state and therein lies the potential for more rights for its citizens.
To quote Juan from his blog,
Informed Comment - thoughts on the middle east, history and religion
"The UNGA vote will not have a big immediate effect on the lives of Palestinians toiling under Israeli occupation. But over time, if the Palestinian leadership deploys it wisely, the new status could have an incremental effect, especially affecting Israel’s relationship to Europe."
and further
"Many European countries have elevated the Palestine mission in their capitals to the status of full embassy. Palestine’s new status as UN observer state could well become a basis for it being given further embassies in Europe. Being an embassy rather than a mission strengthens the legal status of Palestine, including in national courts and EU tribunals."
Read Juan Cole's blog for more about these implications or see the wikipedia entry.
A few responses to this were:
"After the resolution was approved, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu went up and gave Abbas a hug."
"There were celebrations in the West Bank and Gaza with people waving the Fatah and Hamas flags respectively."
"In response for the statehood vote, Israel authorised the construction of 3,000 Israeli settlement houses in a Palestinian area of East Jerusalem."
Accessed on 1 Dec 2012 from the wikipedia entry.
See also: "Israel to build 3,000 settler homes after UN vote" BBC 30 Nov 2012, news report which has more details.
See also this article:
"UN vote gives Palestinians new diplomatic powers"
...Palestinians see the scale of the vote as clear evidence that a tide of opinion is turning their way. Whether they can translate that sentiment into some sort of concrete political progress is hard to determine. ....
(BBC 30 Nov 2012, news report)
Of kijk op de NOS website: "VN verhoogt status Palestijnen"
For the next few months I am involved in a few art projects which have their own blogs. See: sensonja.wordpress.com
I've recently written a review of the Ai Weiwei documentary here and a few Bahai related blogs here.
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