The outpouring of commentary on the request that Palestinians intend to submit to the United Nations to affirm their right to statehood within the pre-1967 borders has fallen into two categories. The first supports the Israeli and American view that sees the Palestinian initiative as endangering the Oslo Accords and prospects for a two-state solution. As described by President Obama, it is a “distraction” from the serious business at hand. The second view supports the Palestinian right to apply for UN membership, or for non-member-state observer status, and rejects the notion that this would set back the peace process.
However, both approaches believe that UN action will not result in any practical changes on the ground and that Palestinians will have to return to the U.S.-orchestrated “peace process” to achieve a two-state solution. And both have in common a profound misreading of the significance of the Palestinian initiative, which is likely to be transformative, changing the rules of the game for Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.
According to the prevailing rules, every aspect of the Palestinians’ existence depends on Israel. Whether Palestinians can travel from town to town within the areas to which they are restricted, open a new business venture, see their homes demolished by an Israeli bulldozer—indeed whether they will live or die—are Israeli decisions, often made by armed Israeli eighteen-year-olds just out of high school.
The Oslo Accords, requiring as they do that Israel withdraw its occupation in stages from the West Bank, were intended to change that reality. But Oslo was quickly undermined by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who declared—“unilaterally”—that the dates established in the accords for the withdrawals are not “holy” and can be ignored by Israel. Furthermore, as noted by Uri Savir, who headed Israel’s Foreign Ministry at the time, Rabin had no intention of returning the Jordan Valley or of sharing Jerusalem. (He might well have changed his views on these issues, as he did on some others, had he not been assassinated by a settler.)
Although the Oslo Accords did not mention a Palestinian state, statehood was the goal implicit in the agreement’s terms and the permanent-status issues slated for negotiations between the parties. But the peace process overseen by the United States was based on an unstated principle that fatally undermined the achievement of a Palestinian state: that any change in the Palestinians’ status as a people under Israel’s occupation depended entirely on Israel’s consent. This effectively excluded everyone other than the occupiers from a role in deciding the Palestinians’ fate. The UN, which was established to assure compliance with international law and to facilitate the self-determination of peoples living under colonial domination, was shunted aside. Above all, this principle excluded the Palestinian people themselves.
To be sure, President Obama recently proposed that negotiations begin at the 1967 lines, with territorial swaps. What he failed to say is that if the parties cannot reach agreement on the swaps, the lines will be drawn by the Security Council. Indeed, he said the opposite—that peace terms cannot be imposed on Israel. His proposal therefore changed nothing. Netanyahu can continue to make demands he knows no Palestinian leader can accept, and the occupation persists.
The real meaning of the Palestinians’ decision to defy the United States is that they will no longer accept their occupier’s role in their quest for statehood. They demand national self-determination as a right—indeed, as a “peremptory norm” that in international law takes precedence over all other considerations—and not as an act of charity by their occupiers.
The American insistence on aborting the Palestinians’ initiative and returning them to a peace process in which their fate remains dependent on Israel is shameful. It stains America’s honor. It will not succeed, for the Palestinian decision to defy the American demand is itself a declaration of independence; that genie cannot be returned to the bottle.
On the ground, little will be changed by a UN affirmation of Palestinian statehood. But nothing will be the same again in the Palestinians’ dealings with Israel and the United States. The notion that Israel will decide where negotiations begin and what parts of Palestine it will keep is history. It is sad that America, of all nations, has failed to understand this simple truth, even in the wake of the Arab Spring. Sadder still is Israel’s continuing blindness not only to the injustice but also to the impossibility of its colonial dream. That dream may now turn into a nightmare as the international community increasingly sees Israel as a rogue state and treats it accordingly.
Henry Siegman is President of the U.S./Middle East Project. He is also a non-resident research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Program, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Comments
Henry Siegman writes:
There are many views supporting Siegman's "second" group (those who see no harm in a Palestinian bid at the UN) that do not presuppose or recommend a return to U.S. mediation. In fact, it is precisely because the U.S. has been such a biased and unreliable mediator that Abbas has declared his independence. In the coming decade other regional powers (Turkey, for example, and possibly even Egypt) will eclipse the U.S. in influence in the region.
So despite the U.N. essentially being a U.S. invention, and despite the U.S. having proudly backed Israel's recognition by that body, and despite the Palestinian Authority having clearly met all the preconditions we ourselves previously set down for them meriting statehood recognition, and despite us having just recently said that we want them to have a state by now, we are moving heaven and earth to prevent same. Despite us further saying for decades that we should be trusted as a fair broker. Despite that resulting in absolutely nothing but giving time to Israel to keep stealing ever more land. And yet of course the next time there's the (utterly predictable) incident of arab or moslem anti-Americanism, just like with 9/11 no matter how openly the actors state their motives otherwise our leaders will say they had absolutely nothing to do with our conduct but were instead because they didn't like our fast food and our freedoms and etc. And the crowning glory of all this is that we are so inciting ever more terrorism against us and expending ever more of our own blood and treasure fighting it in the service of absolutely no vital nor even important interest of our own ... but instead simply help Israel steal and ethnically cleanse ever more land, period. And while we've already paid stratospheric prices for this so far, I suspect we haven't even begun to get anywhere near the total the blood-and-treasure bill yet. This is national self-mutilation.
So let's vote for Ron Paul so we can ensure that the Israelis will also be independent. We could feasibly achieve a resolution to the conflict, born of two millenium of impearial interference by simply having the courage to let them work it out.
Let them apply for "statehood." They are asking the international body that, in essence, set up the mess we now know as the "Middle East." The world is impacted by this issue of the Palistinians and what they want so give it to them and let us see just what they will do with it.
Arabs and Jews alike would experience a sea-change of attitude for the better and a break-through towards an accommodation of peaceful coexistence if the leadership of the PLO only stated clearly its acceptance of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and its right to be so.But, sadly, instead of doing so, the head of the PLO, true to the PLO's Charter, stated from the UN podium that the "occupation" began 63 years ago - Israel's proclamation - implying clearly that the struggle against the "occupation" means the struggle towards Israel's elimination.And, why not since the Holy Land, as Mr. Mahmoud Abbas referred to the cradle of the Jewish people and its civilization of Judaism, has consisted of Christians and Muslims, but not a single mention of the Land as the homeland of the Jewish people, not a word. Negating the deep Jewish roots in the Land is a justification for its "cleansing" of the Jews who "invaded" it, "occupied" it and "settle" in it today.And this is precisely the thrust of the PLO's Charter!!This, sadly, is not a way to achieve an accommodation of peaceful coexistence between Arab and Jew, between the Muslim-Arab world, local and regional, and the nation-state of the Jewish people, Israel.
Another anti-Israel diatribe from Henry Siegman who continues to sound more vicious with every article I run into. Now even the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who gave his life in the pursuit of peace and was recognized as a force for peace even by Yassar Arfat, is portraid by Mr. Siegman as anti-peace "who declared—“unilaterally”—that the dates established in the accords for the withdrawals are not “holy” and can be ignored by Israel." How low can you go Mr. Siegman? Mr. Siegman tells us of the "prevailing rules" by which "every aspect of the Palestinians’ existence depends on Israel. Whether Palestinians can travel from town to town within the areas to which they are restricted, open a new business venture, see their homes demolished by an Israeli bulldozer—indeed whether they will live or die—are Israeli decisions." He tries to create the impression that these were rules imposed on the Palestinians by the Oslo accord. Immediately after the signing of the Oslo accord Israel gave the Palesinians full autonomy with minimal restrictions. The "prevailing rules" as Mr. Siegman calls them were imposed after two Intifadas launched by Yassar Arafat in response to peace offers from Israel, in which suicide bombers blew up buses, restuarants, schools aiming to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible. Mr. Siegman, stop running around from one publication to another, spreading your lies, or at least stay in one place so I can track you down and reply to your lies.