What a busy week this will be for the diplomats of America and Israel! Later this week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will present to the United Nations (U.N.) a formal request to admit Palestine as a new nation under the United Nations.
Israel is trying desperately to head that off because if the U.N. accepts Palestine as a member, this will mean the world recognized Palestine as a nation and that will grant Palestine protection under the U.N. charter. As Israel’s loyal lap…ally, America has already said they will veto Palestine’s membership into the U.N.
Of course the United States faced a few problems with this stance.
1) Over 120 countries have said they will support the Palestinians’ bid so America will be in the vast minority of nations against the bid.
2) Muslim countries (population and governments) in the Middle East all support the bid so America will be going against the people of an important region.
3) In fact, globally more people support UN recognition of Palestine as an independent state than oppose it. A poll by the BBC across 19 countries showed that 49% of the people polled backed the proposal while 21% said their government should oppose it. The rest were undecided but this still means people who back a Palestine state outnumbered people who oppose it 2 to 1. Perhaps most surprisingly is that according to the poll, more Americans (45%) support the bid than oppose it (36%).
It all begs the question; why is the United States vetoing the Palestinians bid? In simple terms; domestic politics! Outside that, there's really no other reason for their objection.
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