United Nations –

The United Nations Security Council on Monday began reviewing Palestine’s bid to renew its bid to become a full member of the United Nations, even though long-standing U.S. policy could lead to a council veto.

“Our position is well known; it has not changed,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters after a meeting of a Security Council committee to consider the Palestinian application.

For decades, Washington has said Palestinian statehood — and therefore full membership in the United Nations — was a final status issue that should be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians as part of a two-state solution.

Thomas-Greenfield said the United States was in “active and cooperative” engagement with the admissions committee, adding that Washington wanted to find a path toward a two-state solution that would provide peace for Israelis and a state for Palestinians.

UN membership is decided by the Security Council, with Washington holding veto power. The 15-nation Council makes recommendations to join the General Assembly, which then votes on them. Admitting a new country requires a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly.

In September 2011, the Palestinian Authority submitted a preliminary application for full membership, but the application never made it to the UN Security Council for a vote.

After that application stalled, the Palestinians sought and received an upgrade to “non-member state” at the UN General Assembly the following year. They still cannot vote, but this allows them to become parties to treaties deposited with the UN secretary-general and join UN bodies such as the World Health Organization and the International Criminal Court.

In a letter to the United Nations last week, the Palestinian Authority asked that the 2011 application be reconsidered this month.

Palestinian envoy Riyad said: “We sincerely hope that 12 years after we changed our status to an observer state, the Security Council will improve its status by accepting the Palestinian state as a full member and implement the global consensus on the two-state solution.” Mansour told reporters.

The council’s New Member Admission Committee discussed the issue behind closed doors Monday afternoon. The committee is tasked with deciding whether the Palestinian territories meet the criteria for statehood, including having a defined territory and a recognized government. According to the United Nations Charter, new members must also be “peace-loving.”

“The Palestinian Authority is the polar opposite of a peace-loving entity,” Israel’s U.N. envoy Gilad Erdan told reporters.

He said an agreement on Palestinian statehood could only be reached at the negotiating table and not unilaterally imposed on Israel at the United Nations.

After the committee meeting, council chair Maltese Ambassador Vanessa Fraser told reporters that preliminary discussions had been “very candid” and that a second meeting was tentatively scheduled for Thursday.

Khalid Elkindi, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington and director of the Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs Program, told VOA that the Palestinian move is unlikely to succeed.

“I think the outcome is already known – even if there is a vote, the United States will veto it,” he said. “They will do everything they can to prevent the Security Council from taking a vote. But a U.S. veto is almost certain.”

The United States also began to legislate in the 1990s, requiring Washington to stop providing funds to the United Nations if the United Nations “grants full national membership to organizations that do not have internationally recognized national attributes.” Losing U.S. funding would be catastrophic for the world organization.

“At the end of the day, this is a no-big-deal burger because it doesn’t change anything. It’s not going anywhere and it just demonstrates the increasing irrelevance and bankruptcy of leadership. [PA President] Mahmoud Abbas,” Elkindi said.

Abbas and the Palestinian Authority face growing pressure from the United States for reforms. Last month, Abbas named his long-time economic adviser Mohammed Mustafa as the next prime minister. He needs to form a government that can reunite Palestinian factions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and help rebuild and govern Gaza after the war between Israel and Hamas ends.