A Palestinian Authority initiative to expel Israel from the United Nations General Assembly is making headway, four sources familiar with the matter told Jewish Insider. 

The PA is considering a path used to suspend South Africa from the General Assembly in 1974, by denying the apartheid regime the diplomatic credentials to represent the country. Doing so would bypass the U.N. Security Council, with the motion going to the U.N.’s Credentials Committee, likely in December.

While the U.S. and many European countries are likely to oppose the motion, and Russia may do so as well out of a concern that the same tactic could be used against them, the Palestinians still have an automatic majority in the General Assembly, an Israeli diplomatic source said.

Israel is likely to place severe sanctions on the PA should it pursue such a move, the source added.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has been briefed on the matter by U.N. and Israeli officials, warned that there would be significant consequences if the Israelis were kicked out of the body. “If the Palestinians succeed in suspending Israel from the United Nations General Assembly, they may well end up disintegrating the U.S.-Palestinian Authority relationship and triggering a full reevaluation of U.S. participation in and funding of all parts of the United Nations,” Cruz told Jewish Insider.

“Palestinian groups and other enemies of Israel are trying to use the United Nations to accomplish diplomatically what they can’t do militarily, which is weakening Israel so it can be attacked with impunity and eventually destroyed. It is both obscene and staggeringly dangerous for American national security interests,” the Texas senator said. 

Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) introduced legislation in August that would cut off funds to any U.N. agency that expels or in any way restricts Israel’s inclusion. The bipartisan pair developed the legislation, which has 35 co-sponsors, amid concerns about anti-Israel activity at the U.N. escalating into action that would exclude the Jewish state from participating in global affairs. 

A companion Senate version has not yet been filed. 

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon told JI that “we are experiencing diplomatic terrorism at the U.N. since Oct. 7, with multiple initiatives against Israel. This radical idea is baseless. It proves the Palestinians are not interested in anything constructive, rather they want to destroy all bridges of diplomacy.”

The news comes five months after the U.N. voted to upgrade the Palestinian Authority’s status to that of observer state, granting them the ability to introduce resolutions in the General Assembly. 

Late last month, PA President Mahmoud Abbas said in his address at the U.N. General Assembly that his team was planning on submitting paperwork to strip Israel of its U.N. membership over its unwillingness to accept a two-state solution that would involve a PA-controlled Palestinian state. 

“I call for suspending Israel’s membership in the General Assembly until it fulfills its obligations and the conditions for accepting its membership and implements all the resolutions of the U.N. and its bodies,” Abbas said at the time. 

The General Assembly passed a nonbinding resolution from the PA in September calling on Israel to end its “unlawful presence” in the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem, based on the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion declaring Israeli occupation of settlements to be illegal.

The ICJ, the U.N.’s world court, ruled that the U.N. and other international organizations were under an “obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence” of Israel in the West Bank. The court called on the U.N. to “consider the precise modalities and further action required to bring to an end as rapidly as possible the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The U.S. Mission to the United Nations did not respond to JI’s request for comment on the matter, nor did the White House.