US says it will ban PA’s Abbas, 80 other officials from attending UN General Assembly

8 comments

1. SS:

   A State Department official told The Times of Israel that a US visa ban on Palestinian officials planning to attend the United Nations General Assembly, announced earlier in the day, would cover Abbas along with 80 other PA officials.

   Under a 1947 UN “headquarters agreement,” the US is generally required to allow access for foreign diplomats to the UN in New York. Washington, however, has said it can deny visas for security, extremism and foreign policy reasons.

   Explaining the move, the State Department announcement said, “It is in our national security interests to hold the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace.”

   The State Department said that the Palestinian Authority’s mission to the UN, comprising officials who are permanently based there, would not be included in the restrictions.

2. This is diplomatic silliness, the PA has little real incentives to work with Israel currently and this dosen’t even effectively ban the PA from attending.

   It also makes it more likely the UN will move out of NYC, though that would harm it far more than the US.

3. So now the US is saying it will not give visas to Mahmoud Abbas and around 80 other Palestinian Authority officials who were planning to attend the UN General Assembly. A State Department official even told The Times of Israel that Abbas himself is included in the ban. This raises a huge question because under the 1947 UN headquarters agreement the US is technically supposed to let foreign diplomats enter New York to attend UN business. The agreement was meant to prevent exactly this kind of thing where the host country uses its own politics to control who speaks. Washington is trying to justify it by saying that visas can be denied for security, extremism, or foreign policy reasons. The official statement framed it as being in the national security interests of the US to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not living up to their commitments and for undermining prospects for peace.

   At the same time the State Department made clear that the Palestinian mission already based at the UN would not be included in the restrictions, so only people traveling in for the Assembly are blocked. Still, the optics are really messy. The UN is supposed to be a neutral international space. By barring Abbas and senior PA officials, the US is sending the message that it decides who counts as legitimate representation. If they can do this, what stops other powers from bending the rules too. It weakens the UN as a forum because it no longer looks like every member has equal standing. The irony is that Abbas is not a strong or popular figure anyway. Cutting him off from a global stage does not change realities in Palestine but it does make the US look like it is overreaching.

4. US is speedrunning the end of empire.

5. Abbas is useless but this doesn’t make any sense. He is powerless and also the PA is nonviolent. If the U.S. does not want to work with the nonviolent arm of Palestinian government, it gives terrorists like Hamas to make argument that nonviolence doesn’t work and Palestinians need to continue to use armed resistance.

6. As others have said, this violates the original agreement for hosting the UN in New York.

   The only reasonable response is for the UN to move its headquarters to a more stable and reliable country.

7. The headline might as well say “US fully abdicates it’s role as a global power and disowns the concepts of peace and peace-making. Pronounces return to might is right”.

8. Representatives to the UN travel and enter the US on diplomatic passports, no? If so, then they have diplomatic immunity for the duration of the visit, but can be declared *persona non grata*, at the complete discretion of the host country’s government for any reason, and ordered to leave the country on short notice. This happens regularly when two countries’ diplomatic and trade relations are cut off, or the diplomat (and/or his entourage) are found to be doing anything that runs contrary to productive diplomatic relations.

   I’ve never heard of a diplomatic passport holder being *preëmptively* declared *persona non grata* by the destination country, and refused entry. I don’t see logically why this *wouldn’t* be an option, especially if diplomatic relations between the two countries are highly fraught. If this happens, does this automatically entail a suspension of diplomatic relations between the Palestinian Authority and the United States Government?

   If my theory, based on my amateurish understanding of international relations, is correct, then my guess is that the US Department of State is worried about Abbas and his entourage doing something on US soil that could compromise US security, and having to expel them *persona non grata* after the fact, with the damage already done, and a major international incident underway. Simply put, this is damage control.

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