Coming in September:
The U.N. 'Train Wreck' Over Palestine
"The two speeding locomotives are of course, Benyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas. ... The U.S. and the E.U. could come out of this
collision of locomotives weakened and wounded - something that countries with
their own aspirations in the region will take advantage of: Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, and Iran undoubtedly, but also China and Russia."
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu delivers a speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, during which he was interrupted for applause over 30 times. Netanyahu rejected the use of Israel's 1967 borders as a basis for talks with the Palestinians.
There is still three months before the two trains
arrive at their collision point. That will be in September, after the opening
of the U.N. General Assembly, where Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas is counting on the support of a large number of member states, perhaps
130 to 140, to recognize Palestine as one of their own. The only thing that might
prevent this is a resumption of peace talks, which right now are at a low ebb,
with both sides in radical disagreement over conditions that both demand of the
other just to sit down.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
The two speeding locomotives are of course, Benyamín
Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas. The first demands that the Palestinian president
break with Hamas, the PLO's estranged and now reconciled brother, if he wants
to negotiate the creation of a Palestine state. And Netanyahu has some powerful
reasons: the goal of Hamas is the destruction of Israel and the group is
classified by Washington and Brussels as a terrorist organization. He also
demands that Abbas recognize the "Jewish character" of Israel; an
oblique way of resolving the question of the Palestinian "right of
return" and branding the million-and-a-half Israeli Arabs that possess
recognized citizenship as foreign - although it’s impossible to disregard the
fact that a good portion of Israel's ultra-right government members would be
delighted if they could take away their citizenship and set to work every day further
reducing their rights.
Netanyahu demands a lot and is disposed to give
precious little. He has dueled with as much skill as cynicism when it comes to
the two demands imposed on him for the talks by Obama: that construction in the
occupied territories be frozen; and that talks are based on the 1967 borders.
The proposed demilitarized Palestinian state would be under permanent Israeli military
control as far as Jordan, there would be no right of return for Palestinian
refugees and there would be no partition of Jerusalem. It's no wonder that the
Palestinians have closed their negotiating office and terminated this phase of
talks.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Negotiations don't mean to Netanyahu what they do to
Abbas. For the former, it means sitting at the table and prolonging the
haggling as long as possible without ever conceding that which he doesn't want
to concede: the occupied territories and Biblical Judea and Samaria, which they
have as much a right to as the Serbs to Bosnia and Kosovo or al-Qaeda to Al-Andalus (Moorish Spain and Portugal). For the latter,
there's no point in negotiating unless it is to create a Palestinian state on
land occupied in 1967, as has been set out in a rash of proposals and plans;
the Clinton Parameters, the Quartet's Roadmap (the U.S., E.U., Russia, and the U.N.), the
2002 Arab Initiative (in reality,
Saudi), and the Annapolis Conference.
Abbas will obtain massive support from U.N. member states,
which will endorse recognition but have no legal effect. If they get as far as
voting on the recommendation, it will be a gesture of high symbolism yes - but
just a gesture. For Palestine to feel like and vote with all of the rights of a
member state, its application must first get the green light from the Security
Council, which will require a favorable vote or at least the abstention of the
United States, which possesses veto power. Once the Security Council gives its
approval, the General Assembly can vote on its inclusion as a member of the
multilateral organization.
Israelis and Palestinians are now engaged in an open
diplomatic tussle over winning over the most hesitant countries, particularly
the Europeans. European Union members may tip the scales - and they would if
they had a common foreign policy and voted together. But that isn't the case. That
is why it is feared that come September, we'll have yet another opportunity to
demonstrate European division and the poor state of transatlantic relations.
The U.S. and the E.U. could come out of this collision of locomotives weakened
and wounded - something that countries with their own aspirations in the region
will take advantage of: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran undoubtedly, but also
China and Russia.
If nothing happens en route and initiatives like
France's to hold an emergency meeting in July fail, the tension in September
could lead to a new intifada. If the first, begun in 1987, was with stones, and the second, begun in 2000, was with suicide bombs, the
third one being prepared will be peaceful, following the example of the young Tunisians
and the Egyptian revolutionaries of Tahrir square who rebelled against dictators
and inspired intellectuals like American Gene Sharp, who support peaceful struggle not only on moral
grounds, but above all for its political effectiveness and capacity to persuade
the public.
