Porto Alegre \u2013 Palestine\u2019s approval as a non-member state of the United Nations (UN) puts Israel in the position of a state occupying another state, instead of other territories, and thus enables Palestinians to call on international organizations to impose sanctions for the occupation of an internationally recognized State. <\/p>\n
To the politicians and historians interviewed by ANBA during the Free Palestine World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, this is the chief practical modification stemming from the vote cast last Thursday (29th) by the UN General Assembly, at which the Palestinians had 138 favourable votes, 41 abstentions and only nine votes against its acceptance as a UN observer state. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis will give us a chance to become full members of all UN agencies and the power to influence international organizations,\u201d said Nabil Shaat, the Fatah\u2019s commissioner for International Relations, who is representing the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) president Mahmoud Abbas at the event. \u201cThis backs our claim that our land is occupied and Israel must leave; they can\u2019t stay forever. This brings some hope to our people from a political standpoint. We don\u2019t want to fall back on violence, this has been a political achievement,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael is an established state with no defined borders, but there are United Nations resolutions in this respect, and the peace agreements are based on said resolutions,\u201d said Salah Elqataa, the minister-counsellor to the Palestinian ambassador in Bras\u00edlia. \u201cWe are recognized by 138 countries of the international community at the United Nations General Assembly. We have been recognized by the absolute majority of the countries, that is what\u2019s most important,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
To the Palestinian representative Fayez Saqqa, international recognition of Palestine as a state is only the beginning when it comes to creating an actual Palestinian State. \u201cWe are aware that this vote will not put an end to Israeli occupation overnight; we will have to keep fighting against the occupation in the realm of international organizations,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
According to him, the next step is the recognition of Palestine as a full member state of the United Nations Security Council. \u201cWe will submit our bid to the Security Council next year, but it should go through the General Assembly, and unfortunately we will see another veto from the United States,\u201d he regretted. \u201cStill, we will submit the bid, and in case it gets rejected we will keep submitting it in the years to come. It is our right and we will achieve it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Emir Sader, a Brazilian social scientist and political scientist of Lebanese ascent, believes the vote complicates Israel\u2019s position as an occupying state in Palestine. \u201cIt is not just a recognition as a UN non-member state; it is a recognition on 1967 borders, the recognition of an autonomous, independent, sovereign state,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
He claims Palestine\u2019s current status allows its government to make new claims. \u201cI believe that once it has been recognized as a state, Palestine has the right to make a claim for an airport, for instance, which could be located on the border with Jordan, and other elements which are inherent to a state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor instance: it\u2019s absurd for Israel to collect taxes in Palestine and threaten not to return them. I believe the new legal status allows for claims and international recognition. For instance, it allows Palestine to require that Israel be punished and suspended from international organizations for not observing the UN\u2019s resolutions, and not recognizing the Palestinian State,\u201d he explained. <\/p>\n
To the historian and critic Andr\u00e9 Gattaz, author of the book \u201cA Guerra da Palestina, da cria\u00e7\u00e3o do Estado de Israel \u00e0 Nova Intifada\u201d (free translation: The War of Palestine, from the Creation of the State of Israel to the New Intifada), the main consequence of the UN\u2019s ruling is that more countries will now support the creation of an actual State of Palestine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of the practical lives of Palestinians, to me the conflict is most likely to be solved when the Israeli population itself starts to become aware that things cannot remain as they are forever, and that they themselves will not be safe and in peace as long as things remain the same,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI believe there might be an Arab Spring-style movement in Israel if the majority of the population decides that the best solution to the conflict is the creation of a Palestinian State,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To Palestinian politicians and Brazilian historians, Palestine\u2019s new status at the United Nations creates more favourable conditions to the establishing of an actual State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2313,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-43287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-foreign-affairs"},"wps_subtitle":"To Palestinian politicians and Brazilian historians, Palestine\u2019s new status at the United Nations creates more favourable conditions to the establishing of an actual State.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2313"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}