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The Palestinian Bid for UN Membership

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) David Makovsky - On Dec. 15, 1988, 104 UN member states - a two-thirds majority at the time - voted in favor of General Assembly Resolution 43/177, which "acknowledged" the Palestinian declaration of statehood made the previous month. The U.S. and Israel voted against it, and 36 members abstained. The resolution stipulated that the Palestine Liberation Organization observer would henceforth be referred to as "Palestine." Abbas' motivations for pursuing the current UN initiative cannot be divorced from this year's Arab upheavals, which seem to have pushed him toward the UN as a means of avoiding a popular rebellion. Moreover, Palestinians recognize that they cannot afford to rely exclusively on Arab support and initiatives at the moment because neighboring regimes are preoccupied with their own survival. Israel views the UN track as inherently contradictory to the negotiations track. It also views the UN bid as a breach of the Oslo Accords, which stipulated that neither side would endeavor to change the status of the West Bank. Israel views the Palestinian move as an attempt to short-circuit peacemaking and gain the prize of an independent state without making the difficult concessions that a peace agreement would require. In fact, the Israeli government suspects that Abbas is incapable of making such concessions. In July, 407 of the 435 members of the House of Representatives voted to suspend congressional aid to the PA should it proceed with the UN plan. At the same time, 87 of 100 members of the Senate passed a similar resolution. Because the U.S. is the PA's largest individual donor, a suspension of congressional aid would drastically impair its functioning. Washington should make clear to the PA that any General Assembly resolution must include certain key elements if it is to avoid harming U.S.-Palestinian relations: The Palestinians will gain the powers of statehood only after mutually satisfactory bilateral negotiations with Israel. There will be no option allowing the Palestinians to go to the International Criminal Court as a vehicle for redressing their political grievances. The demarcation of borders should occur at the negotiating table and as part of a broader peace package, not within a unilateral statehood resolution. The writer is director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process at The Washington Institute.
2011-09-12 00:00:00
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