The resistance’s conditional support for UN resolution on Palestine

TEHRAN,Dec.16(MNA)--The United Nations General Assembly’s recent recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state should be regarded as a positive step for Palestine in its quest to attain its legitimate rights at the international level. The move gives the Palestinians the right to take legal action against Israel and also facilitates Palestine’s bid to become a full member of the UN. However, Palestinian groups and parties have a variety of opinions on the issue. The Palestinian Authority, which is led by Mahmoud Abbas, keeps saying that in order to attain full membership at the UN and establish an independent Palestinian state, the Palestinians should forget about their rights in regard to the territories occupied in 1948 and 1967 and also the refugees’ right of return. The Palestinian resistance groups are diametrically opposed to this stance and still adamantly insist on Palestine’s legitimate rights, including the liberation of all the land occupied by Israel and the right of return for refugees. They believe the recent UN resolution is important and positive, but not so important that they should give up their inalienable rights, for which the resistance has bravely fought for decades. Yet still, the Islamic resistance movement Hamas and other resistance groups in Palestine have described the UN resolution as another defeat for Israel. In the view of the resistance, Israel was politically crushed a few days after its army suffered a major military defeat in Gaza, but the new status at the UN will not cause the resistance to abandon the struggle for Palestinians’ legitimate rights. The United States is still one of the most implacable opponents of the UN measure, with U.S. officials saying it interferes with the Palestine-Israel peace process. Over the past two decades, the U.S. has always used the same pretext to attempt to delegitimize and suppress the Palestinian resistance movements. Even Israel shows no commitment to the peace process and continues the illegal expansion of settlements in the Palestinian territories. The United States has adopted an obdurate position on Palestine’s new status at the UN because it gives the Palestinian resistance more legitimacy in the international arena and thus more and more countries will support it in the future. Majid Safataj is a political analyst and an expert on the Middle East based in Tehran. (By Majid Safataj )