Bosnia, Gabon and Nigeria are the unwitting kingmakers in the desperate Palestinian battle for UN Security Council votes to back their campaign for membership of the world body.
All three face a diplomatic offensive from the Palestinian leadership on one side, and the US and Israel, who oppose Palestinian entry into the UN, on the other.
Even though Washington has vowed to veto any Security Council approval of Palestinian membership, garnering a majority of votes on the 15-member council would be a valuable moral victory for Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said last week he believed he has eight Security Council votes and is working on the ninth required for a resolution to pass — forcing the US to use its veto as a permanent member.
The math is complicated with the Palestinians so far only assured of public support from six countries: Brazil, China, India, Lebanon, Russia and South Africa.
The European powers say they have not yet decided how to vote, but diplomats say the UK, Colombia, France, Germany, Portugal and US will abstain or oppose the resolution.
That leaves Bosnia, Gabon and Nigeria in the diplomatic firing line.
Malki is to go to Bosnia, where the country’s ethnically divided three-man presidency is split on backing the Palestinians.
Other high-level delegations are to visit Gabon and Nigeria, Palestinian officials said, even though Malki said he has assurances from the two that they will back membership.
The three kingmakers already recognize the Palestinian state, but also see the US diplomatic shadow hanging over them.
“The United States has political and economic leverage,” one UN council diplomat said.
Bosnian Muslim and Croat co-presidents Bakir Izetbegovic and Zeljko Komsic support the Palestinian bid, but Serb member Nebojsa Radmanovic is against. Bosnia’s UN votes are normally decided by consensus, so diplomats say the divisions and close links to the US could force them into an abstention.
“My sympathies lie with the Palestinians and Palestine as a state, but politics is not just sympathies and private positions,” Komsic told the Dnevi Avaz newspaper on Friday.
There has been a Palestinian delegation in Gabon for several years, but the country could abstain, a source close to the country’s presidency said. Gabon will support the Palestinians or abstain, the source said.
Nigerian Foreign Minister Olugbenga Ashiru has signaled support for the Palestinian bid, without saying clearly how Africa’s most populous nation will vote, media reports say.
Half of Nigeria’s 150 million population is Muslim and it is a country which the US has in the past had difficulty gaining leverage over.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS