Drop bid for top U.N. job or lose visas, U.S. tells PalestiniansExBulletin

Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour strokes his heart during Kuwait’s Crown Prince’s speech at the high-level Security Council meeting on Palestinians and Israel during the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, September 23, 2025. Angelina Katsanis/AP .

switch captionAngelina Katsanis/AP

TEL AVIV, Israel — The United States is threatening to revoke the visas of the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations unless the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations withdraws his candidacy for vice president of the General Assembly.

A U.S. State Department cable released Tuesday and obtained by NPR asks U.S. diplomats in Jerusalem to pressure Palestinian officials this week to withdraw their candidacy for one of 21 U.N. vice president positions or face possible consequences, including the revocation of their visas.

The May 19 U.S. cable, marked sensitive but unclassified, claims that Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour “has a history of accusing Israel of genocide,” and that his proposal is “stoking tensions” and undermining President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza.

“A tyrannical pulpit for Mansour would not improve the lives of Palestinians and would significantly harm relations between the United States and the Palestinian Authority. [Palestinian Authority]. Congress will take this extremely seriously,” the cable said.

The office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declined to comment.

‘It would be unfortunate,’ says US cable threatening to revoke visas

Before last year’s United Nations General Assembly in New York, the Trump administration took the rare step of denying U.S. visas to senior Palestinian officials, including President Abbas. But the United States did not revoke the visas of the Palestinian delegation to the UN

“In September 2025, the Department made the decision to lift visa sanctions and other inadmissible orders for Palestinian officials assigned to the PLO’s UN observer mission in New York. It would be regrettable to have to reexamine available options,” the May 19 cable said.

Former US diplomat calls visa revocation ‘counterproductive’

For decades, the United States, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, opposed Palestinian attempts to gain full membership in the United Nations and international bodies, arguing that they were unilateral moves that undermined peace efforts with Israel.

But the American threat to revoke the visa of the Palestinian ambassador to the UN is unprecedented.

Hady Amr, who served as a senior State Department official responsible for Palestinian affairs during the Obama and Biden administrations, criticized the decision to threaten visa restrictions.

“Outside of extreme situations like Russian espionage or election interference, the use of visa restrictions like you point out is extremely rare,” Amr told NPR. “In general, it’s counterproductive because you need diplomats to solve problems between countries and by expelling diplomats you undermine not only their ability to solve problems, but also that of the United States.”

“We take our obligations under the UN Headquarters Agreement seriously,” the State Department said in a statement to NPR. “Due to the confidentiality of visa records, we have no comment on the ministry’s actions regarding specific cases.”

A 1947 agreement prohibits the United States from preventing U.N. officials from visiting the U.N. in New York, but the United States has in the past denied visas to several Iranian and Russian officials, as well as former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, citing national security reasons.

The Palestinian ambassador has already withdrawn his candidacy for president

In February, Palestinian Ambassador Mansour withdrew his candidacy for president of the United Nations General Assembly. The United States had pressured him to abandon his offer, according to the American cable.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN celebrated Mansour’s decision to abandon the candidacy.

“From the beginning, the very submission of the nomination was another attempt to turn the UN General Assembly into a political circus against Israel and to strengthen the status of the Palestinian delegation through the back door,” Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said in an online statement. “Instead, the Palestinian delegation should start focusing on stopping incitement to terrorism and truly reforming the Palestinian Authority.”

Elections for the vice-presidential positions will take place on June 2. U.S. officials have repeatedly called on the Palestinian delegation not to run in this election.

The Palestinian ambassador is on a list of Asian and Pacific countries in the running, including Afghanistan, Iraq and Mongolia, according to La Neice Collins, a spokeswoman for the office of the president of the UN General Assembly.

The US cable indicates that the next president of the General Assembly could ask a Palestinian vice president to preside over high-level UN sessions.

The cable called this a “worst case scenario.”

Emotional appeals to the UN

Mansour commanded attention at U.N. sessions in ways other ambassadors did not, addressing the humanitarian plight of his people with moving speeches and calls for peace.

In May 2025, at the height of the Gaza war, he choked on tears during a speech describing the children killed in Israeli airstrikes.

“They’re kids, kids,” he said. “The images of mothers embracing their still bodies, stroking their hair, talking to them, apologizing to them… It’s unbearable,” he said, banging his fist on the table and crying.

In August 2025, he declared that a ceasefire was the only way to save both Israeli hostages and the lives of Palestinians in Gaza. “It is not our destiny that the option is the continuation of killings, agony, tragedies and wars,” he said.

NPR’s Michele Kelemen in Washington and Aya Batrawy in Dubai contributed to this report.

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