India on Friday voted in favor of a draft resolution in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). This proposal states that Palestine should be made a full member of the United Nations. It recommended that the Security Council reconsider the matter.
The 193-member General Assembly met for an emergency special session on Friday morning. During this time, a proposal for ‘entry of new members into the United Nations’ was put forward by the Arab countries in support of Palestine. 143 votes were cast in favor of the proposal. While nine voted against. Whereas, 25 did not participate in the voting. India voted in favor of this resolution. After the vote was cast, the UNGA hall erupted in thunderous applause. The resolution said that Palestine is eligible to become a member of the United Nations and should be included according to Article 4 of the Charter of the United Nations.
India was the first non-Arab country to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in 1974. India was one of the countries to recognize Palestine as a nation in 1988. In 1996 New Delhi opened its representative office for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, which was later moved to Ramallah (West Bank) in 2003.
