UN General Assembly lets Mahmoud Abbas speak by video after a second US visa ban

The United Nations General Assembly voted on 17 September to let Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas address next week's high-level debate by video. The count was 152 in favour, 3 against and 4 abstentions. The United States, Israel and Paraguay voted no. India voted with the majority. The text also lets Palestine send a pre-recorded statement or join by videoconference at other UN meetings over the coming year if its officials are blocked from travelling to the United States.

The United States extended visa restrictions on Abbas and other Palestinian Authority and PLO officials on 16 September. It is the second year in a row that he will not sit in the hall. Last year's workaround was the same: a screen in the General Assembly and a representative physically present to introduce the tape. High-level week of the 81st session begins on 22 September.

The contrast with Iranian visas

Washington has granted visas to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for the same week, even as the US-Iran war runs into its seventh month. Deputy US Ambassador Tammy Bruce told the Assembly that if the Palestinian Authority wants to be treated as a partner it must "stop subsidizing terror and stop using diplomatic theater as a substitute for serious governance." Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon said Abbas cannot expect to walk into New York while payments to prisoners and their families continue. "Instead of coming to New York, he will send videos. The responsibility for changing this policy is in his hands," Danon said.

China and Russia called the visa refusal a breach of the UN Headquarters Agreement, which requires the host country to admit people who need to attend UN meetings. Secretary-General António Guterres, through spokesman Stéphane Dujarric, had already asked the United States last month to let Abbas attend in person. Western European members voted for the video resolution even as they kept their other disputes with the Palestinian Authority on the table.

What the vote does not settle

A video slot is not recognition of statehood. It is a procedural patch for a host-country decision the Assembly cannot reverse on US soil. Abbas will speak. The empty chair beside the Palestinian nameplate will still be empty. Pezeshkian, if he comes, will walk into the building as the leader of a country at war with the host.

That pairing is the political fact the vote leaves on the record. The Assembly can schedule a tape. It cannot force the State Department to stamp a passport. For the rest of high-level week the argument will move from the voting machine to the cameras outside the delegates' entrance, where one leader arrives and the other appears on a screen.