News

Palestinian Statehood Returns (Ho-Hum)

Little Drama Expected as Abbas Goes Back to U.N.

By Ben Lynfield

(Page 2 of 2)

Jerusalem — It remains to be seen how far Washington would go in lobbying members of the G.A., where historically there has been a strong pro-Palestinian majority. The measure would not require endorsement by the Security Council, where the United States is one of five countries that can veto a resolution that otherwise has majority support.

Last year’s statehood push was short-lived as the Palestinians failed to muster even the nine Security Council votes necessary to trigger a veto from the United States.

This time around, Abbas is seen as making the move from a position of weakness, not because he is enamored of it. Among other things, he is said to be concerned the initiative could elicit punitive steps from the United States or Israel.

Hani Masri, director of the Badael (Alternatives) think tank in Ramallah, sees the U.N. membership bid primarily as a tactic to muster pressure for renewed negotiations on Abbas’s terms, which call for Israel to freeze its expansion of West Bank settlements. He believes that the P.A. leaders might suspend the bid at some point — in particular if Obama wins re-election, to give the president time to restart diplomacy.

“Abbas is betting on Obama,” Masri said. “He thinks the American administration has the solution and has the capacity to press Israel.”

In Israel’s view, it is the Palestinians who have refused to negotiate unconditionally. Unsurprisingly, Israeli officials reject the notion that the P.A. is being forced to turn to the U.N. because the peace process is stuck. Over the past several months the government has made a series of gestures that, Israeli officials argue, should suffice to get negotiations restarted. These included releasing to their families the corpses of Palestinians who had waged terrorist attacks, asking the International Monetary Fund to give a loan to the P.A. and signing a new trade agreement with the P.A.

“I hope the Palestinians have not made a final decision, ” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman, Mark Regev. Israel, he noted, holds that the peace process is based on a 1993 letter from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to then-Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, specifying that all disagreements will be solved through negotiation. “If the Palestinians try to use the unilateral path and go to the U.N…. we will consider it a violation of their most fundamental commitment,” Regev said. Israel, he added, “reserves the right to respond.”

To little avail, a minority of Israelis argue that the Palestinian U.N. move should be supported, not opposed. The danger of Israel turning into a binational state is real if the West Bank, with its large Arab population, continues to be settled, and if progress toward Palestinian statehood remains frozen, they say.

“A General Assembly resolution may be the last chance to establish a Palestinian state and turn the momentum around,” said Alon Liel, a former director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry. “This is something that is existential for Israel. We cannot stay a Jewish state if we have one binational state. We can do so only if we divide into two separate entities.”

Contact Ben Lynfield at feedback@forward.com.