Israel Matzav

Can the 'Palestinians' get a 'state' without 'negotiations'?

The 'Palestinians' are near 'despair' about the prospects of a negotiated deal with Israel - probably because in a truly negotiated deal, one side cannot dictate terms to the other. Therefore, the 'Palestinians' are trying to do an end run around the 'negotiations' reports the New York Times.

The idea, being discussed in both formal and informal forums across the West Bank, is to appeal to the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and the signatories of the Geneva Conventions for opposition to Israeli settlements and occupation and ultimately a kind of global assertion of Palestinian statehood that will tie Israel’s hands.

The approach has taken on more weight as the stall in American-brokered peace talks lengthens over the issue of continued settlement building.

“We cannot go on this way,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a former peace negotiator who is a part of the inner ruling circle of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which oversees the Palestinian Authority. “The two-state solution is disappearing. If we cannot stop the settlements through the peace process, we have to go to the Security Council, the Human Rights Council and every international legal body.”

In an interview, she said that the P.L.O. was holding high-level discussions on these options this week.

Israeli officials reject the move as unacceptable and a violation of the 1993 Oslo accords that govern Israeli-Palestinian relations. It would also pre-empt any efforts by Israel to keep some settlements and negotiate modified borders. But the Israelis are worried. No government in the world supports their settlement policy, and they fear that a majority of countries, including some in Europe, would back the Palestinians.

The Israelis say that what is really going on is a Palestinian effort to secure a state without having to make the difficult decisions on the borders and settlements that negotiations would entail. They are pressing the Obama administration to take a firmer public stand against the new approach, but Washington has made no move to do so.

“A lot of members of the international community believe that since the Palestinians are the weaker party, if they get more support it will help them in the direct talks with us,” a senior Israeli official said, speaking on standard diplomatic ground rules of anonymity. “But it works in the opposite direction. This would kill a negotiated settlement.”

Indeed, it would. And Secretary of State Clinton, at least, seems to recognize that.

Clinton, speaking at a banquet hosted by the American Task Force on Palestine, said that both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas were still committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Negotiations are not easy, but they are absolutely necessary. It is always easier to defer decisions than it is to make them," Clinton said. "I cannot stand here today and tell you there is a magic formula that I have discovered that will break through the current impasse. But we are working every day to create the conditions for negotiations to continue and succeed," she added.

"I know there are those who think that if they wait, scheme or fight long enough, they can avoid compromising or negotiating. But I am here to say that that is not the case. That will only guarantee more suffering, more sorrow, and more victims," she said.

Clinton's assertion that peace talks were the only way to solve the region's problems appeared to come in response to a New York Times report which said the Palestinian Authority is looking for alternatives to the stalled negotiations.

But does the President feel the same way? Or will the 'fierce moral urgency' of establishing a 'Palestinian state' lead him to support or at least not oppose a 'Palestinian' end run?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:10 PM