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PA says it will declare statehood

Architectural image of Rawabi, the first planned Palestinian town.JERUSALEM — Frustrated by a lack of progress toward statehood, the Palestinians are considering taking their case to the UN.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas had hopes a more Muslim-friendly US administration would press Israel into a peace deal on terms favorable to the Palestinians. When this failed to materialize, Abbas announced plans to resign.

Now he is threatening to go to the UN Security Council to ask for recognition of a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders, with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.

Abbas’ thinking is that such a move would resolve the core border issue in a single stroke and validate the illegality of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

All that would be left to negotiate would be the terms of Israeli military and civilian withdrawal from territories already internationally recognized as Palestinian, and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes in Israel.

The idea met with bold pushback from Israel, lack of support from the US and the EU.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said at a EU foreign ministers meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 16, regarding a Palestinian state, “I don’t think we are there yet. I would hope that we will be in a position to recognize a Palestinian state, but there has to be one first. I think that is somewhat premature.”

By using the UN, the Palestinians are turning to the arena where they feel strongest. They are hoping to exploit their near-automatic UN majority.

But after the US and EU poured cold water on their gambit, PA negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Nov. 17 that the PA will not unilaterally declare an independent state, and is only seeking a UN Security Council resolution endorsing a two-state solution along the pre-1967 lines.

He accused Israel of “twisting his words,” and added, “one state is not an option.”

Meanwhile, Erekat spent the previous day summoning 27 European consuls to Ramallah to  request their backing for the Security Council move, and claiming that the PA  had the support of Russia and China for a unilateral declaration.

The PA’s latest move, whatever its exact nature, appears to be a tactic to pressure Israel to come to the negotiating table with a much more favorable offer or face a very difficult international situation.

What Abbas wants are terms of reference for negotiations with the territorial outcome virtually guaranteed either by international fiat or through prior agreement with Israel.

SO far, the Netanyahu government is not willing to put such an offer on the table.

On the one hand, he warned that  a unilateral move by the PA would have dire consequences. On the other, he suggested that if the Palestinians would only enter negotiations with him, they would get a very good deal.

Speaking Sunday at a forum in Jerusalem sponsored by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Netanyahu said that any unilateral moves by the Palestinians would “unravel the framework of agreements between us and bring unilateral steps from Israel.”

Close associates spelled out what this might mean: Freed of its commitments to the Palestinians in prior accords, Israel might see its way to annexing large settlement blocs in the West Bank and suspending all economic cooperation with the Palestinians.

This apparently sobered up the PA, which later said it only wanted the UNto specify the borders of two-states.

On the other hand, Netanyahu held up the prospect of boundless prosperity for both sides if they negotiated a peace deal, and he urged the Palestinian leadership to try him.

“If we start talks, we can surprise the world,” he said.

Netanyahu insists he is ready to come to the peace table in a spirit of generosity and that on his recent visit to Washington, he told President Obama just how serious he was about making peace.

Did Netanyahu give Obama a commitment to go all the way with the Palestinians if they agree to a number of basic Israeli conditions?

If not, will he do so now to give US special Mideast envoy George Mitchell something to bring the Palestinians to the table and persuade them to drop their UN move?

The PA complains that Israel, under Netanyahu, did not “pick up where Olmert left off,” and accept the terms of a peace deal that Olmert supposedly negotiated, but which the PA never accepted.

One senior Israeli diplomatic source said that it was ironic that the PA, which turned down Olmert’s offer just a year ago, was now “nostalgic” for that offer and trying to force the new Israel government to take it up.

If the Palestinians have the support of all the permanent members of the Security Council except Washington, they still may proceed, despite an anticipated American veto, to embarrass Israel and the US.

Ironically, Israel is lifting more checkpoints than ever before, easing movement in the West Bank, and thus contributing to an economic revival on the West Bank.

HAMAS, meanwhile, put in its own two cents’ worth in on the unilateral declaration.

It rejected the PA’s decision to unilaterally declare a state in the West Bank and Gaza, saying it should take over all of Israel.

“Why not declare a Palestinian state from the sea [Mediterranean] to the river [Jordan]” rather than in the West Bank and Gaza only?” Hamas spokesman Salah Bardweel said Monday, Ha’aretz reported.

“This move is not a meaningful declaration. It simply aims at escaping the benefits of resistance against the occupation,” Bardweel said.

“Instead of threatening to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state to be established in the air, we should work on liberating the occupied territories and end the current internal [Palestinian] division.”

Tovah Lazaroff and Herb Keinon of the Jerusalem Post, and the IJN contributed to this story.




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