While world leaders are preparing to meet in New York for the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (Unga) in September, a nation will have no representative: the Palestinian people. Indeed, the United States Department of State has decided to refuse visas to Palestinian officials seeking to attend the UNGA session.
Since 1947, the United States has mainly honored its “registered office agreement” with the UN, granting visas – although limited – to officials from around the world invited to attend the UN meetings. There have been opportunities, however, when the United States has used its position as a host of the Anga to refuse visas to foreign diplomats from the countries it wanted to isolate, like Russia, Iran, Venezuela and others.
In the case of Palestine, this is not the first time that Palestinian leaders have faced a visa refusal. In 1988, Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), was not allowed to come to the UN either to participate in Unga, the United States government justifying its decision with “security threats”.
Today, the Trump administration offers a similar justification, claiming that the decision reflects us of “national security interests” and the accusation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to “do not comply with their commitments, and … undermine the perspectives of peace”.
The official justification of the United States according to which the AP did not repouble “terrorism”, including the attacks of October 7, 2023, is fragile. Under President Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian management systematically condemned “terrorism”, including attacks, and went even further by supporting the French-Saudi declaration which called for the disarmament of Hamas.
It is important to remember that the AP was created by the 1993 Oslo agreements, which were signed in the White House by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, American president Bill Clinton organizing the ceremony. In the following years, the AP received substantial support from Washington, including a significant amount of funds, and accompanied any peace initiative led by the United States.
In this regard, accusing the AP of “undermining the perspectives of peace” is simply absurd. The reason for visa refusals is clearly elsewhere.
The Trump administration’s decision coincides with a world moment when leaders of several Western countries have expressed their intention to recognize Palestine at Unga this month. We expect that at the end of September, France, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Portugal and Malta can join the 147 UN Member States which already recognize the Palestinian State.
The Trump administration has put pressure on these countries so as not to go ahead with their plan. As it may not work, Washington probably tries to refuse the Palestinians the opportunity to celebrate this moment and a platform to talk about the continuous Israeli atrocities in Gaza and in occupied West Bank.
On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be welcomed with open arms in the United States. Despite the International Criminal Court (ICC) which issued an arrest warrant, Netanyahu was the most common guest in the White House since the inauguration of Trump; He will also be present at Unga. Curiously, in 2013, the US government denied a visa by Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, citing his CPI arrest warrant.
While refusing to the Palestinians a platform at the UN, the United States has also been accomplices in the Israeli campaign to silence Palestinian journalists.
The American decision to refuse the visas of Palestinian diplomats intervened only five days after Israel bombed the Naser Hospital in Gaza, killing 22 people, including five Palestinian journalists. This led the number of journalists that Israel has killed the Trump administration has not condemned the attack since the war. Two weeks earlier, when the Israeli army targeted and killed four journalists from Tel Aviv Tribune, the State Department seemed to approve the Israeli story that they were “part of Hamas”.
This occurs on the tail of the American government’s inaction on a number of other Israeli targeted killings of journalists, including that of the American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh in May 2022 and my friend and colleague Nazeh Darwazeh, who was killed in 2003 while working for the Associated Press.
The United States is clearly determined to help Israel refuse the Palestinians a platform and a voice to speak to the world and present its file for the State.
As Matt Duss, executive vice-president of Washington, Center for International Policy, based in DC, has put it in a tweet: the refusal of the visa is “a perfect expression of decades of American policy towards the Palestinians: we will punish you for violence, but we will also punish you for non-violence”.
If even a compliant Palestinian body that has given up the armed struggle is not allowed to speak, then who is? Who can speak for the Palestinians?
The current American position seems to support the efforts of the Israeli occupants to remove the Palestinians from their homeland and erase Palestinian self -determination. But you cannot wish an entire people of the surface of the earth, even if you are the only superpower.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.