Palestine wins upgraded UN status by a mile

Electronic screen lights up with the final vote and Ban Ki-moon congratulates Mahmoud Abbas

In an extraordinary lineup of international support, the UN General Assembly voted overnight by a more than two-thirds majority to recognize the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders, a move vehemently opposed by Israel and the United States.

The 193-member world body approved the resolution upgrading Palestine’s status to a nonmember observer state at the United Nations late Thursday by a vote of 138 in favor to 9 against, with 41 abstentions.

The vote was a victory decades in the making for the Palestinians after years of occupation and violence. It was a sharp rebuke for Israel and the United States.

The vote grants Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas an overwhelming international endorsement for his key position: establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

A Palestinian flag was quickly unfurled on the floor of the General Assembly, behind the Palestinian delegation, after an electronic screen lit up with the final vote.

With its newly enhanced status, the Palestinians can now gain access to UN agencies and international bodies, most significantly the International Criminal Court, which could become a springboard for going after Israel for alleged war crimes or its ongoing settlement building on war-won land.

Abbas told the assembly the vote was the "last chance to save the two-state solution" with Israel.

Israel's envoy to the UN said the bid pushed peace process "backwards," while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the vote "unfortunate and counter-productive.”

"Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two states [one Arab, the other Jewish] and became the birth certificate for Israel," Abbas said shortly before the vote in New York.

"The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine," he said.

Joining Israel and the United States in voting “no” were Canada, Czech Republic, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama.

Of the “Big Five” permanent members of UN Security Council, three voted in favor (China, France and Russia), one abstained (UK) and the fifth voted against (U.S.).

The vote highlighted the lack of unity as well among the 27 member states of the European Union. But it also marked a drain in sympathy for Israel in Europe.

Just one EU country -- the Czech Republic -- voted against Palestine upgrading its status within the world body.

Fourteen others -- Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Spain and Sweden -- voted in favor (as did non-EU members Norway and Switzerland).

The remaining 12 EU members -- notably Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and United Kingdom -- abstained.

The vote grants the Palestinians the same status at the UN as the Vatican, and they will keep their seat next to the Holy See in the General Assembly chamber.

The Holy See promptly issued a communiqué after the vote stating in part: “Considering the outcome of today’s vote of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and to encourage the International Community, and in particular the Parties directly concerned, towards concrete action in view of the aforementioned objectives, the Holy See welcomes with favor the decision of the General Assembly by which Palestine has become a Non-member Observer State of the United Nations.

“It is a propitious occasion to recall also the common position that the Holy See and the Palestinian Liberation Organization expressed in the Basic Agreement of 15 February 2000, intended to support the recognition of an internationally-guaranteed special statute for the City of Jerusalem, and aimed, in particular, to safeguarding the freedom of religion and of conscience, the identity and sacred character of Jerusalem as a Holy City, respect for and freedom of access to its Holy Places.”

Pope’s eyes in Lebanon will be on its surroundings

The late Pope with Lebanese Muslim leaders (L). His successor (R) lands in Beirut Friday

Talal Salman, founding publisher and editor-in-chief of the Lebanese daily as-Safir, penned today’s front-page leader in Arabic:

When he arrives Friday, Pope Benedict XVI will not find the same Lebanon his predecessor, the late Pope John Paul II, visited in May 1997.

Firstly, conditions have changed in the small country.

At the same time, the situation is drastically different in its immediate neighborhood and the surroundings, where dramatic changes herald open-ended civil wars under fake religious and sectarian slogans.

That’s probably why the new papal visit is Lebanese by name only. Its focus though is the complete gamut of the “New Middle East” – the hope being to comprehensively reflect on explosive regional issues.

Do we need to recall (1) that the Vatican has the world’s largest information gathering and analysis network (2) that it has specialized departments that are not only concerned with religious matters but monitor political, economic and social transformations and their implications, and (3) that it has its niche in the realm of international decision-making?

For the Pope to come to Lebanon at this particular point in time -- when the pan-Arab nation is swept by popular uprisings and protest movements against its regimes, with great implications for the countries concerned and the region generally – means the visit’s objectives certainly transcend the “Lebanese case.”

The visit’s objectives encompass the course of events in Lebanon’s surroundings and their fallouts on the Lebanese -- this, plus a reassurance message to Lebanon that it is not forgotten or left to twist in the wind or fall into the abyss, considering its leaderships’ failings.

It is easy to say that by flying to Lebanon Pope Benedict XVI wants to reassure all Christians in the Orient that they are not overlooked, that their wellbeing is the concern of both the Vatican and eastern and western powers, and that such concern takes in the mutations, regime changes and changed circumstances across the region that sometimes go beyond the slogans raised in revolution squares.

It’s worth pondering the longer-term objectives of the impending (September 14-16) visit, which is exceptional by its timing and avowed purpose.

(Arriving in Beirut in the early afternoon on Friday, Pope Benedict XVI will go to the basilica of St. Paul in Harissa, where he will sign the apostolic exhortation. The papal document will summarize and reflect upon the discussions held by the Synod of Bishops in October 2010. That special meeting of the Synod was dedicated to the challenges facing the Church in the Middle East).

“Lebanon is more than a country, Lebanon is a message of freedom and an example of pluralism for both the East and the West…” were the words of the late Pope John Paul II during his May 1997 visit.

The country was then largely united after a political settlement of the Lebanon civil war -- and the wars of others on its soil. That war, or multiple wars, consumed all manner of religious, confessional and sectarian jingles before settling on the catchphrase of power-sharing with guarantees from Arab, read chiefly Syria with some Saudi input, and international, read chiefly American with some European and Vatican effort, players.

But the Arab region today is unlike what it used to be 15 years ago. Circumstances have changed almost everywhere since 1997.

Syria, the guarantor of the 1989 Taef Agreement ending the Lebanon civil war was strong, its people united and its regime a regional heavyweight. West and East, Arabs, Iranians and Turks recognized Syria’s pivotal role in ending the Lebanon civil war.

Syria today is in Lebanon’s former decade-long civil war situation. All its sides are crumbling, including its ancient cities and its capital, which was the world’s capital one day, as a consequence of bloody clashes, mass-killing bombings and the disastrous flight en bloc of its citizens in all directions – whether to Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon or Iraq.

The army was thrown into the fray with all weapons at its disposal, including warplanes. This led to a situation of open combat between the regime and a separate mix of opposition forces -- some of them nationalist insurgents seeking reform to protect the country and other Salafist, jihadist and anarchist groups fighting for their own purposes or plundering the country’s antiquities.

In short, the country that was a model of immunity by virtue of its national unity risks putting its destiny – as Lebanon did before – in the hands of external forces.

It is consequently understandable to revisit, on the sidelines of the deadly conflict, the subject of the “fate of Christian minorities” in the region – especially after the plight and sufferings at the hands of shadowy gangs of Iraq’s Christians, who were displaced and dispersed throughout the world.

The Vatican had to help descendants of Christians who inhabited Iraq since the dawn of history relocate to Europe and the United States.

Here we are then facing the prospects of an organized drive to protect Syria’s Christians, taking into consideration also the mass emigration of Lebanese Christians in the wake of internecine strife in their homeland.

Hence the need to give thought to the past, present and future of the Christians of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, let alone the Holy Land…