Israel Matzav: Time running out for the 'Palestinians'

Friday, October 21, 2011

Time running out for the 'Palestinians'

The 'Palestinians' are worried that time is running out on their 'statehood' gambit. They are pushing for a UN Security Council vote on November 11, three weeks from now.

U.N. diplomats said earlier this week that a Security Council committee considering the membership bid would deliver a report on that day, and that ambassadors would then decide on the next steps.

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“We still have time until Nov. 11, so there is a lot of efforts pushing certain countries to voting in favor,” the Palestinian envoy to the U.N. in Geneva, Ibrahim Khraishi, told The Associated Press.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki told reporters in late September that the membership bid has support so far from eight Security Council members: Russia, China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Lebanon, Nigeria and Gabon. He said the Palestinians are lobbying for more votes, including from Bosnia and Colombia.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited Colombia on Oct. 11 and was told by President Juan Manuel Santos that Colombia will only recognize a Palestinian state that has been established through negotiations with Israel, which leaves Bosnia as the likely key to a ninth “yes” vote.

Khraishi said “several parties are working” to secure the votes, but declined to elaborate. “I think that we will succeed to get the nine,” he added.

Elections to replace five nonpermanent members of the Security Council on Friday could create a grouping even less likely to approve the Palestinians’ bid, if it rolls over into the new year.

Winners will take their posts Jan. 1. Strong Palestinian backers Brazil and Lebanon, along with Nigeria and Gabon, will be leaving the council at the same time.

Guatemala, running unopposed for the lone Latin America seat, has never recognized a Palestinian state. Neither has Slovenia, one of three candidates for the East European seat being vacated by Bosnia.

The rest of the candidates have all recognized a Palestinian state: Togo, Mauritania, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Pakistan and Kyrgystan.

“The addition of Guatemala and the subtraction of Brazil would make it a bit more difficult” to get statehood approved, if the vote is held over, said Warren Hoge, senior adviser for external relations at the International Peace Institute, a New York think tank.

Israel Radio reports that the 'Palestinians' are threatening to go to the General Assembly as soon as possible if they do not succeed in gaining acceptance into UNESCO (a threat that would be moot in the unlikely event that the Security Council votes to accept the 'Palestinians').

Meanwhile, one of the earliest supporters of 'Palestinian statehood' is trying to backtrack. Would you believe France?

What began as a French bid to one-up a weak U.S. foreign policy is now devolving into a struggle over continued U.S. funding for the only significant U.N. organization headquartered in Paris: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).

In recent weeks, while the Palestinians have pressed forward with a bid for full membership in Unesco, both French diplomats and U.N. officials have been quietly back-pedaling on the issue. Like so many maneuvers at the U.N., this reversal appears to be less about grand matters of principle than about money.

According to American law since the 1990s, the U.S. is prohibited from giving funds to any part of the U.N. system that grants the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) the same standing as member states. This could amount to a shortfall of more than $70 million per year to Unesco.

Currently, Unesco operates with an annual budget of more than $325 million, to which the U.S. is by far the largest contributor, giving 22%. France, while prizing Unesco as its showpiece U.N. tenant, chips in just 6.1%.

In years past, France has already tasted what it means for Unesco to forgo U.S. funding. In the 1980s, the U.S. withdrew from Unesco, returning only in 2003 under President George W. Bush. Apparently, the Quai d'Orsay has no wish to repeat that experience. French diplomats are now saying that, despite their earlier backing of the Palestinian unilateral bid, Unesco is "not the right time, nor the right place" to wrestle with the question of Palestine.

Read the whole thing. It will be fun to see the French squirm.

Labels: Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, UN Security Council elections, Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)