On Thursday, Nov. 29, the Palestinian Authority (PA) upgraded their “non-member observer entity status” in the United Nations (UN) to “non-member observer state,” as voted on by the UN General Assembly. One hundred thirty-eight countries voted in favor, including France and Spain, with nine countries opposing and 41 abstaining. The United States and Israel are two of the nine countries that voted against the membership upgrade. Many Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) students said they were disappointed by the U.S. decision to vote against the PA.

Nigel Cronk, FCLC ’14, said the United States’s vote was a move against the peace process. “Foreign policy is a huge issue and we are supposed to be making better relations in the world, and we need better allies in the Middle East,” Cronk said.

By upgrading their status to a non-member state, this label implies unofficial statehood, which is similar to the status of the Vatican in the United Nations. With non-member status, the PA can apply to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), which will allow them to propose an investigation on alleged war crimes committed by Israel.

Nadia Chowdhury, FCLC ’14, said the PA has the right to join the ICC. “I’m glad for Palestinians. I know how long the struggle has been going on,” Chowdhury said. “They have been struggling to get recognition from so many countries. And they have the right to bring up criminal trials in international courts.”

But the overwhelming majority came as a surprise to some FCLC students. Chowdhury said she did not expect that 138 countries would vote in favor of the PA. “I was a little shocked that an overwhelming majority voted for Palestinians. I wasn’t aware that so many were in favor,” Chowdhury said. “I was under the impression that no one really cared for them.”

Julianna Hubbard, FCLC ’14, said she took the majority support as a sign that voting in favor was the right choice to make. “The fact that most countries voted for the upgrade shows that this clearly was the right thing to do – which is to have a say and be protected by the UN [United Nations], along with having a status.”

The PA’s president is Mahmoud Abbas, who is also the chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The PA is in control of one of the two Palestinian territories: the West Bank. The second territory is controlled by Hamas, the Islamist group that was in an eight-day war with Israel from Nov. 14 until Nov. 21.