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A Palestinian Flanking Maneuver
(Wall Street Journal) Robert P. Barnidge Jr. - Mahmoud Abbas - president of the Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank - will likely secure majority support in the UN General Assembly for "non-member state" status. But the Abbas maneuver probably won't lead to an independent state of Palestine, which would require the practical cooperation and support of Israel. And it might well prompt Israel to take proportionate countermeasures against the PA for abdicating its international legal obligation, under the 1993 Oslo Accords, to seek a permanent settlement with Israel through negotiation. The U.S. should make clear that it will oppose any action to grant Palestine the status of a non-member state unless the move takes place within the context of a permanent negotiated settlement with Israel. The writer, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is a lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Reading in Britain.