Voice of America Corrects: U.S. Didn’t Veto Palestinian Statehood Bid

CAMERA’s Israel office prompts correction of a Voice of America article and headline which wrongly stated that the United States vetoed the Palestinian statehood bid in the United Nations Security Council.
 
As noted on our Snapshots blog last week, the inaccurate headline had stated: “US Vetoes Palestinian Statehood Resolution at UN.” In addition, the article’s lead inaccurately stated: “The United States has vetoed a United Nations Security Council draft resolution on Palestinian statehood that demanded Israel withdraw from the occupied territories.”
 
 
In fact, as was widely reported elsewhere, given that the resolution fell one short vote of the nine votes required to pass, the United States, which had voted against the draft, did not have to exercise its veto right. The American vote against a resolution is not a veto so long as the draft falls short of the nine countries in favor.
 
This writer tweeted VOA about the error, and editors subsequently corrected.
 
 
The current headline refers to the Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court, and no longer errs by referring to a U.S. veto that didn’t happen.
 
In addition, editors commendably deleted the erroneous text in the article itself and added the following accurate information:

There were eight votes in favor of the measure, two against and five abstentions. Australia and the United States voted against the resolution.

Even if the measure had received the nine votes needed for passage, the U.S. vote against it would have effectively vetoed the resolution.

In addition, editors appended the following clarification to the bottom of the article:
 
 
It is unclear what editors mean when they state that “the U.S. vote against the Palestinian statehood measure had the effect of a veto” (it didn’t, and only would have the effect of a veto of nine countries had voted in favor), but their steps to correct the headline and text are commendable.

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