The 'Palestinians' goal in the Security Council
Some of you may be wondering why the 'Palestinians' took the opportunity to miss an opportunity by turning down the American offer of a statement from the President of the Security Council. While I disagree with his premise that the Obama administration can be relied upon (if this were, God forbid, Obama's second term, I believe that resolution would be allowed to pass), I'm not sure this is over yet, Shai Franklin has the correct explanation for the 'Palestinians' behavior: The Arabs rejected the U.S. proposal, for the same reason the U.S. offered it. They don't care whether the Council issues anything, be it a full-fledged resolution or a less formal statement. They care about forcing the United States to veto a tactical resolution now so we'll have less credibility later on when a vote on Palestinian statehood comes before the Council.But while I believe that's what the 'Palestinians' were thinking, I don't think they gain a lot through their behavior. First, why should the US have less credibility for having ostensibly been shown to be partial to Israel (if only it were true) when everyone else in the UN still has credibility despite the fact that they are clearly partial to the 'Palestinians'?
Second, what good does it do the 'Palestinians' to have the US lack credibility on the unilateral statehood question? The bottom line is that a General Assembly resolution is a no-brainer, but would be utterly meaningless. Without the Security Council, they are not going to get a meaningful resolution through, and if the US vetoes this resolution, having jumped into the scalding tub of exercising its veto power once, it seems all the more likely that the Obama administration would use the veto again to try to reach a negotiated settlement, particularly given that this is 2011 and not 2015.
For all of their faults, the Obama administration seems to recognize that a 'Palestinian state' can only arise out of a negotiated settlement with Israel. I don't believe that will ever happen because the minimum the 'Palestinians' will accept is far more than Israel can ever give - look at the fury over Palileaks - and because what the 'Palestinians' really want is to destroy Israel and they will never give up the 'right' to do that. The US is not going to send its own troops here to fight us, and they're not going to agree to a UN resolution sending troops here to fight us, although Obama may abandon us if God forbid we are attacked. We can't count on a Nixonian airlift like in 1973.
Hopefully the Government of Israel recognizes those realities.
Labels: Barack Obama, Palestinians, UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, unilateral declaration of statehood, US veto
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:28 PM
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