Whatever happens at the UN, Palestinians and
Israelis still need a deal, and this UN initiative does not advance hopes for
an agreement at all.
By Afshin Molavi
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas's momentous decision to seek statehood at the United Nations has been
interpreted in many ways: a bold, decisive move to force Israel's hand and
level the playing field in future negotiations; a risky diplomatic gambit that
will achieve little in the face of a certain US veto and will fuel tensions in
an already volatile environment; a watershed moment in the Palestinian struggle
for self-determination. Mostly, however, the move is an acknowledgement of
failure.
It acknowledges the failure of nearly 20
years of peace processes from Madrid to Oslo to Washington, from Cairo to
Hebron to Wye River, from Taba to Beirut to Camp David. It acknowledges Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's failure of imagination and failure of vision,
an intransigence that seems anachronistic in today's environment, especially
when some of Israel's most hard-bitten former security and defence chiefs have
publicly called for more active diplomacy toward a two-state solution.
It acknowledges the failure of the historic
opportunity offered by the peace initiative of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah,
first proffered in 2002, a dramatic move toward full Arab state recognition of
Israel. In 1967, in a Khartoum Arab League summit, the attendees outlined the famous
three "No's": no to peace, no to negotiations and no to recognition
of Israel. In Riyadh, in 2007, the gathered Arab heads of state said
"yes" to all three.
It also acknowledges the failure of six US
presidents beginning with Jimmy Carter who tried, in varying degrees, with
varying intensity and with varying impartiality, to find that elusive goal of
Israel-Palestinian peace.
More specifically, it acknowledges the
failure of President Barack Obama, a man whose election engendered nearly as
much hope in the international arena as it did at home. But Mr Obama has found
both at home and abroad that soaring rhetoric is not enough to change the most
stubborn facts on the ground: one of which has been Mr Netanyahu's
unwillingness to rein in the expansion of settlements in the West Bank.
And thus it fell to Mahmoud Abbas, a
colourless Fatah bureaucrat who wound his way to the top through caution and
patience and patronage, to make good on the oft-threatened "UN state
option". Indeed, as the International Crisis Group, a global think tank
based in Brussels, pointed out in a recent report, there is some irony there.
Mr Abbas is "the Palestinian leader traditionally most invested in
bilateral negotiations" and "least persuaded by attempts to
circumvent them" and yet he is presiding over "the most intense and
determined effort to extract UN endorsement of statehood".
Mr Abbas made a simple argument when he made
his announcement in Ramallah, broadcast live on Al Jazeera television:
Palestine needs a seat at the UN, so it can negotiate with Israel as a fellow
state. Mr Netanyahu and hard-line members of his coalition have cried foul,
even suggesting that the move could do permanent damage to the peace process.
In a revealing piece in the Jewish American
newspaper The Forward, the columnist JJ Goldberg noted that the vast majority
of former top Israeli defence and intelligence officials basically endorse a
Palestinian state with borders roughly along pre-1967 lines. Of the six living
former Israel Defence Force chiefs, he notes, all but one "favour a
Palestinian state with borders based, either now or eventually, on the 1967
lines". He goes on to note that of six living former Shin Bet chiefs, all
but one agree. And of seven living ex-Mossad chiefs, "the three oldest
haven't spoken out lately; all the others publicly support the positions
described".
Goldberg goes on: "Think about it. These
are the people who have overseen Israel's defence for more than a generation.
The military chiefs believe, almost unanimously, that Israel could be secure
living alongside a Palestinian state with adjusted 1967 borders. The
intelligence chiefs believe almost unanimously that the Palestinians would
settle for what Israel can safely give. They all believe Israel would be safer
that way."
And yet, despite this growing consensus of
Israel's "securocrats", as Goldberg called them, and despite the historic
shift in Arab state opinion as outlined by the King Abdullah plan and despite
the growth of a responsible, moderate Palestinian government led by the PA's
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank, we still find ourselves facing a
dramatic showdown at the UN that threatens to unravel the process of bilateral
negotiations, which remains the only realistic path to a sustainable deal.
So, why are we at this point? Mr Abbas has
not hid his frustration with the Obama administration nor his belief that Mr
Netanyahu is not serious about peace. And once the Palestinian Authority
floated the statehood trial balloon, it was hard to pull it back - even if they
wanted to do so - without losing face. The argument coming out of Ramallah is:
What other choice do we have?
As Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace
negotiator, put it: "Israel, and friends of Israel, really ought to open
their ears to this. We may be seeing the closing of a door."
When Mr Abbas hands the statehood application
to the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon as he promised, he will be both making
history and acknowledging the failures of the past 20 years of history.
Television lights will pop, diplomats will scramble, headlines will scream, but
Israel and Palestine will likely be no closer to a peace deal.
-This commentary was published in
The National on 19/09/2011
-Afshin Molavi is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a senior adviser at Oxford Analytica
-Afshin Molavi is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a senior adviser at Oxford Analytica
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