The UN can end the Middle East conflict by welcoming Palestine as a member
On the Mount of Olives overlooking the Dome of the Rock at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem Old City, 19 April 2024
Jeffrey Sachs and Sybil Fares write in Al Jazeera on 10 January 2025:
The UN, on its 80th birthday in 2025, can mark the occasion by securing a lasting solution to the conflict in the Middle East, by welcoming the State of Palestine as the 194th UN member state. The upcoming UN Conference on Palestine, set for June 2025, can be a turning point – a decisive, irreversible path towards peace in the Middle East. The Trump administration would greatly serve America’s interests, and the world’s, by championing the two-state solution and a comprehensive Middle East peace deal, at the gathering in New York in June.
Amid Israel’s shocking brutality in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, a small window of hope has nonetheless emerged. Almost the entire world has coalesced around the two-state solution as the key to regional peace. As a result, a comprehensive deal is now within reach.
The UN General Assembly recently adopted a potentially transformative resolution (PDF) by an overwhelming margin. The UNGA demands an end to Israel’s illegal 1967 occupation and reaffirms its unwavering support for the two-state solution. Most importantly, the resolution laid out a roadmap for establishing a Palestinian state at The High-level International Conference (PDF), to be held in June 2025, at the United Nations.
Consider how long the Palestinians, and the world, have waited for this moment. In 1947, the UN first took on the responsibility of addressing the Palestinian question. With Resolution 181 (PDF), the UN General Assembly proposed the partition of Mandatory Palestine into two independent states – one Jewish and one Arab. The proposed partition, alas, was neither fair nor agreed upon by the parties. It allocated 44 percent of the land to the Palestinians though they were 67 percent of the population. Yet before the plan could be revised and settled peacefully, Zionist terror groups began to ethnically cleanse more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, the so-called Nakba, or catastrophe, of the Palestinian people.