The Palestinian Authority is going to the UN to seek statehood not because Israel would not negotiate, but because it would.
The PA does not fear the absence of negotiations, but their existence.
Previous negotiations between Israel and the PA failed not because they made no progress, but because they made much progress.
The problem was not that the negotiations stalled, but that they advanced.
The PA now eschews negotiations not because they may yield an impasse, but because they may yield a solution.
The first set of serious negotiations between Israel and the PA, in 2000 at Camp David, under the aegis of President Clinton, did not fail because the settlement issue held things up, but because the settlement issue was resolved.
Same for the second set of serious negotiations between Israel and the PA in 2008 under the aegis of PA head Abbas and Israel Prime Minister Olmert.
Bottom line: The minute solutions loomed and agreements on major issues were reached, the Palestinian Authority balked.
The minute the necessity of Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state became unavoidable because the actual issues were resolved the PA balked.
The minute the necessity of Palestinian renunciation of all claims against Israel became unavoidable because the actual claims were resolved the PA walked away.
Read the related IJN blog posting, “How scared should we be of UN Resolution 377?”
The minute longstanding disagreements were overcome, the PA introduced new issues.
The minute the PA was asked to take yes for an answer, it said no.
In 2000, under President Clintons proposals, the settlement issue went away. Clinton said two things:
First: Let Israel keep its settlements on the West Bank, and let the PA receive equivalent territory from within Israel. This had the double advantage of (a) not tearing down homes and uprooting people, and (b) giving the Palestinians the same amount of territory they would have if Israel were confined to the 1967 lines. Israel said yes.
Second: Let Israel renounce sovereignty over the holy basin, the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. Israel said yes.
The PA, having achieved what it sought in negotiations and feeling pushed to the wall to say yes, said instead: Israel must admit five million Palestinian refugees. This so called right of return was not previously set forth by any Palestinian leader as a Palestinian demand. It was new. It had only one intended purpose: to put an end to successful negotiations on the settlement-territory-border issue.
Presented with a fair solution to a longstanding Palestinian demand, the Palestinians could not go forward.
That would have meant recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, and an end to all claims against Israel.
That, more than anything more than settlements, more than Jerusalem the PA could not abide.
The same thing happened in 2008 and that is why the PA now wants to go to the UN. Not just to get a state, but to avoid recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and to avoid ending all claims against Israel.
The PA tactic of seeking unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state is designed to extend the conflict.
The PA tactic is designed to continue the war against Israel. It is designed to avoid coming to terms with a Jewish presence in what it deems to be an Islamic area.
The Palestinian Authority is going to the UN to seek statehood not because Israel would not negotiate, but because it would.
Not because there are no solutions to the conflicts between Israel and the PA, but because there are.
The Palestinian Authority is going to the UN not to put an end to the conflict, but to avoid putting an end to the conflict.
Which is why President Obama is right in saying that the PA going to the UN is the wrong way to go.
Let us hope that Obama sticks to his guns, and vetoes at the UN Security Council any Palestinian attempt at a non-negotiated, unilaterally declared state.
Let us hope that the US exercises its influence to prevent a subsequent return of a vetoed Security Council resolution to the UN General Assembly, where a veto can be overturned by a two-thirds vote.
Let us hope for both, because a unilaterally declared Palestinian state can only mean two things: (a) more delegitimation of Israel; and, worse (b) more terrorism, more war, more suffering.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
