The Hamas vote

Another effort by the US to pressure Palestinians through the UN was subverted on Thursday – although it was a close call. The US asked the UN General Assembly to vote on a resolution condemning Hamas, a religious political group that administers the Gaza Strip. Needing a two-thirds majority to be able to pass, the resolution was a close call. The results showed that 87 countries voted in favour, 57 countries voted against, while another 33 countries abstained from the vote. The failure of the resolution to pass the threshold confirms the weakening position of the US in international matters, but Hamas cannot have been happy with the fact that a large number of countries voted to condemn the group. The resolution required a two-thirds majority after Kuwait asked for a procedural change which was voted on earlier, with a much closer result of 75-72, but Palestine lost another 12 votes when it came to the final voting on the resolution. The US pressure included a formal letter for the US envoy to the UN.

The US position that reconciliation between Palestine and Israel must be predicated on a condemnation of ‘Hamas terrorism’ is a non-starter. UN member states, including a number of European countries which voted in favour of the resolution, might be mooring to win favour back with the US and Israel after earlier UN condemnations of Israeli atrocities in Palestine. The trouble is that the oppressor and the oppressed cannot be seen as equals in their acts of violence. It should be clear that it is Israel that is the aggressor against the Palestinian people, but this is not what the results of the vote show.

Had it not been for Kuwait’s earlier intervention, the US managed to secure a simple majority, which would have been enough to pass the resolution condemning Hamas. Hamas has celebrated it as a victory, while Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he would ‘not allow the condemnation of the national Palestinian struggle.’ The failure of the resolution is being seen as significant since the US was attempting to ‘weaponise’ the UN against the Palestinian people. But it should be clear that not enough countries voted outright against the resolution, which is another confirmation that the UN is not a forum for the pursuit of justice. This resolution may be been defeated, but the larger cause of the Palestinian people remains far from reaching a just resolution.