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A State of Palestine Would Backfire on Its Own People

(Guardian-UK) Mehdi Hasan - The Palestinians are walking into a trap of their own making. Mahmoud Abbas, the PA president whose electoral mandate expired more than two years ago, also happens to be chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO, in its capacity as "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," has had observer status at the UN since 1974 and been allowed to participate in Security Council debates since 1976. The UN vote is a change in nameplates. According to Guy Goodwin-Gill, a professor of international law at Oxford University, the PLO's UN status would be transferred to the new state of Palestine after the vote on 20 September: a state which, lest we forget, does not actually exist. To have a PA-led fantasy state representing only West Bank and Gaza residents replace the PLO - representing all Palestinians, a majority of whom live outside the West Bank and Gaza - as Israel's chief interlocutor would be a disaster. Karma Nabulsi, an Oxford academic and former PLO official, says that by "losing the PLO as the sole legitimate representative at the UN, our people immediately lose our claim as refugees to be part of our official representation." The writer is senior editor (politics) at the New Statesman and a former news and current affairs editor at Channel 4 (UK).
2011-09-02 00:00:00
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