Affairs of statehood

Mahmoud Abbas,president of the Palestinian Authority,stuck to his ground and submitted a bid to the United Nations for full Palestinian membership — a bid guaranteed to be vetoed by the US when the UN Security Council is expected to take the matter up,beginning today. Abbas’s submission,after refusing to heed US President Barack Obama’s warning to back off,and his rather aggressive speech at the UN General Assembly on Friday will ensure he loses,at least for now,the tag of weak and dithering. The historic nature of the moment was caught not merely in the spontaneous celebrations on the West Bank but also in the fact that Abbas has now returned the question of Palestinian statehood to the very forum where an earlier generation of Palestinian leaders had rejected the 1947 UN mandate partitioning Palestine.

The solution to the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies in the absolute guarantee of Israel’s security and an independent Palestinian state. While Abbas’s bid has been criticised by the US and Israel as unilateral,and the wrong way to approach a very deserving end,Palestinians expect a lot more now after the Arab Spring. And Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu,Abbas and Obama know the consequences of any fallout that might strengthen the extremists. Yet,even if the bid does go to the UNGA after a US veto at the UNSC — and the Palestinians are elevated by a resolution to “non-member observer status”,with possible access to UN bodies like the ICC — little will change on the ground.

Netanyahu’s speech at the UNGA,which countered Abbas’s and also nitpicked,did however extend the offer of negotiations,without of course preconditions that Abbas insists on. For things to change on the ground — negotiating the pre-1967 borders,land swaps,settlements,the status of Jerusalem and the question of refugees — it is difficult to envision anything other than the resumption of the talks that collapsed last year. The Mideast Quartet will be very busy in the near future. But any assault on the Palestinian bid right now,symbolic as it may be,is likely to retard the gains of international diplomacy post-Arab Spring.