The Palestinian dilemma at the U.N.

What happened

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas this week declared that he would push ahead with his plan to seek formal recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations Security Council. President Obama called on Abbas to abandon the initiative, saying that Palestinians would only secure statehood through direct negotiations with Israel. “Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the U.N.,” Obama said in an address before world leaders at the General Assembly. “If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now.” Obama has repeatedly vowed to veto any Palestinian statehood proposal put before the Security Council. If that happened, Abbas could then go directly to the 193-member General Assembly, which could grant Palestine permanent non-member status, like that of the Vatican.

There were signs, as The Week went to press, that a showdown could be forestalled. Foreign diplomats told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz that Security Council members had secretly agreed to postpone any vote by referring the proposal to a subcommittee for study. Another plan reportedly under consideration would see Abbas deliver a letter to the Security Council seeking full Palestinian statehood, without pressing for a vote. A delay would give Abbas and his advisers time to bargain with the U.S. over the terms of new peace talks. “We don’t need a vote right away,” said a Palestinian official. “We see this as the beginning of a process.”

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What the editorials said

Palestinians are right to take their case to the U.N., said the London Observer. During 20 years of peace talks, “the space available for a Palestinian state has only shrunk” as Israel appropriated more and more land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It’s now up to the international community to decide on the merits of a Palestinian state.

But there’s “no such thing as a Palestinian state,” said National Review. This wannabe country lacks everything a nation needs, from internationally defined borders to functioning institutions. Its government is also fatally split: Hamas terrorists control half the territory, while the rest is ruled by Abbas, “a former terrorist whose term of office expired two years ago.” A yes vote at the U.N. would simply put “a fig leaf on a fraud.” So why are the Palestinians pursuing “this symbolic trinket”? asked The Wall Street Journal. Because admission to the U.N. guarantees access to the International Criminal Court, which can issue international arrest warrants for Israeli soldiers. That’s a useful tool for Palestinians “in their perpetual campaign to harass, delegitimize, and ultimately destroy Israel.”

What the columnists said

Israel has inflicted this wound on itself, said Peter Beinart in TheDailyBeast.com. If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had picked up negotiations where they left off with his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, the Israelis and Palestinians might have struck a deal by now. Abbas had already signed on to a non-militarized Palestinian state, continued Israeli control of East Jerusalem, and the return of only a handful of Palestinian refugees to Israel. But Netanyahu “insisted that Israel could never relinquish any part of Jerusalem or admit even a single refugee,” forcing Abbas to head to the U.N.

Don’t blame Israel, said Yossi Klein Halevi in The New Republic. The Palestinians have twice been offered a state based on the pre-1967 war borders. Their leaders refused to abandon “the ‘sacred’ right of return” of all Palestinian refugees to Israel—“that is the sacred right to destroy the Jewish state through demographic subversion.” Netanyahu’s stance isn’t the cause of the peace process breakdown “but its result.”

Whatever happens in the next few weeks, Obama is in a “no-win” situation, said Laura Meckler in The Wall Street Journal. If he doesn’t veto recognition of a Palestinian state, he’ll lose support among American Jews, a constituency he needs to win re-election in 2012. And if he does use the U.S. veto, he’ll further damage America’s lousy standing in the Middle East. But perhaps we should all stop panicking about this “largely symbolic” vote, said Wendy Chamberlain in Politico.com. If it passes, it will simply make the Palestinians “feel more empowered in negotiations” with the far-more-powerful Israel. Would that really be such a bad thing?