UN upgrade of Palestine status a sharp rebuke for Israel and US

The United Nations has voted overwhelmingly to recognise a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians still face enormous limitations: they do not control their borders, airspace or trade, they have separate and competing governments in Gaza and the West Bank, and they have no unified army or police.

In an extraordinary line-up of international support, more than two-thirds of the world body’s 193 member states approved the resolution upgrading the Palestinians’ status from an observer to a non-member observer state.