Palestine overshadows UNGA session of world leaders

United Nations, Sept 22 (IANS) Palestine is overshadowing the General Assembly's annual high-level week when presidents, prime ministers and potentates parade across the hall's green marble podium setting forth their worldview.

While the Ukraine War and conflicts rage around the world, and the UN, which is at the 80th year milestone itself, faces challenges of near crisis proportions, the issue of Palestine takes centre stage with a summit on its statehood on Monday ahead of the high-level meeting that starts on Tuesday.

Britain, a permanent member of the Security Council, and other Western countries announced they were recognising Palestine's statehood on Sunday ahead of the summit.

Another permanent Council member, France, which is convening the meeting with Saudi Arabia, has said it will announce its recognition on Monday, joining the 152 of the 193 UN members who have done so, including India.

But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won't be there.

The US refused to give him a visa to visit New York for the summit, and the Assembly on Friday voted to allow him to speak through a remote video link.

The US and Israel, joined by three other countries, voted against it, while 145 countries voted for it and six abstained.

That tally shows the tide of support for Palestine, which is facing an existential threat from Israel's onslaught on Gaza, where about 75,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed, and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement that the country will expand Jewish settlement on the West Bank.

The overwhelming backing for Palestine's recognition may create the image of the UN acting on a long-festering issue, but it will remain only symbolic because the US will veto its membership, and Netanyahu remains unmoved.

Below the headline-grabbing event are other pressing issues, including the future of the UN, which is facing a financial crisis with US President Donald Trump threatening to cut financial contributions and a growing disillusionment with the deeply polarised UN -- a recent poll showed only 58 per cent of those surveyed globally trusted it.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had made grand plans for the world leaders to take up his UN80 initiative with a presentation, 'Shifting Paradigms: United to Deliver', which proposes streamlining the work of the UN, making it more efficient and also financially viable by consolidating its functions around three core areas -- peace and security, sustainable development, and human rights.

Reflecting it, the high-level session's theme this year is 'Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights', but key global leaders -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China -- won't be there.

By tradition, Brazil is the first speaker when the regular high-level session starts, and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva barely made it because of US visa restrictions that snared some in his delegation in a web of global polarisation.

All eyes will be on Trump, who will follow him, also by tradition.

The US President has upended the global scenario with his trade wars and his power play, and the world will be looking closely at his speech for clues to where he may be headed.

Beyond the Assembly hall, where squabbles and enmity, but also hopes of nations and humanity, and offers of cooperation will be heard, real diplomacy will happen at bilateral and multilateral meetings.

These will have added urgency as nations try to figure out how to navigate the Trump era.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who will represent India at the high-level session, started off his round of diplomacy on Sunday, meeting the Philippines Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro.

After the meeting, she posted on X that their meeting "reaffirms our 2 countries' commitment as Strategic Partners to actively develop cooperation in political, defence and security, the maritime domain, etc."

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in)

--IANS

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