The United Nations General Assembly on May 10 overwhelmingly voted to grant Palestine the right of representation, and hence more importantly, finally a global platform to speak out against the atrocities they have endured for decades under the Israeli occupation. 

As many as 143 countries voted for the resolution granting Palestine the right to sit and to speak in the General Assembly. In UN diplomacy, this is significant progress, Palestine having held non-member observer status since 2012. Full membership, if that were to happen, would give it voting rights. This would be the next fight, and we are getting there, albeit slowly.

The resolution was carried out with the support of more than two-thirds of the Assembly members, enough to send another recommendation to the Security Council, which has the final say on the question of full UN membership.

Nine countries voted against the Assembly resolution, but besides Israel and the US, the other seven are barely worthy of comment. More interesting to notice is that countries whose governments have supported Israel’s Gaza campaign, like France and Australia, voted for the resolution, while the United Kingdom and Germany were among the 25 members that abstained. They appear to be responding to domestic public opinion, which has also called for an end to the genocide.

Diplomacy has its limitations, and the resolution has not stopped Israel from killing Palestinians in Gaza and the rest of the occupied territory. But it is the only weapon available at the disposal of the UN, and sadly it is not necessarily all that effective.

Many General Assembly resolutions against Israel in the past, including calls for a cease-fire, have been ignored by the Jewish state. Repeatedly shielding Israel against harsher criticism is the US, by exercising its veto right on the Security Council.

Last month, it vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for admission of Palestine as a full member. The resolution was backed by 12 of 15 Council members, including US allies France, Japan and South Korea. The UK and Switzerland abstained. The US was the odd one out. With the latest General Assembly resolution, another vote at the Security Council is coming soon. Let us see how the US will vote this time.

Another veto would not only further isolate Washington from the world, but it would also undermine its standing as a global leader. It is no longer the model of democracy and the land of freedoms other countries admire and want to emulate, especially not after it enacted a law that expanded the term anti-Semitism, virtually making it a crime to even criticize the state of Israel. And especially not after police violently broke up student protests and encampments on campuses in several colleges demanding their government stop arming Israel.

It is for the US to resolve its own contradictions, and come November, to decide who they want to be president. But this US isolationism comes with a huge price-tag, for the US and for the so-called “free world” which it leads.

Irrespective of what happens in the US, pressure is building for more international support for Palestine, as expressed by 143 governments in the UN, and also on the streets and campuses in many countries.

Palestine has now been guaranteed a voice in the UN. Many more people around the world are recognizing the need not only to end Israel’s Gaza campaign, but beyond that, to end the occupation once and for all, and to give the Palestinian people their dignity and the right to statehood.