Will the U.N. General Assembly recognize a Palestinian state when it reconvenes in September? And if it does, what will the fallout when the United States – as President Obama has said it will do – vetoes the resolution? For Spain’s El Pais, columnist Louis Bassets warns that one of the consequences may be an even greater gulf between America and Europe.
For El Pais, Louis Bassets writes in part:
There is still three months before the two trains arrive at their collision point. That will be in September, after the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, where Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is counting on the support of a large number of member states, perhaps 130 to 140, to recognize Palestine as one of their own. The two speeding locomotives are of course, Benyamín Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas.
Negotiations don’t mean to Netanyahu what they do to Abbas. For the former, it means sitting at the table and prolonging the haggling as long as possible without ever conceding that which he doesn’t want to concede: the occupied territories and Biblical Judea and Samaria, which they have as much a right to as the Serbs to Bosnia and Kosovo or al-Qaeda to Al-Andalus (Moorish Spain and Portugal). For the latter, there’s no point in negotiating unless it is to create a Palestinian state on land occupied in 1967, as has been set out in a rash of proposals and plans; the Clinton Parameters, the Quartet’s Roadmap (the U.S., E.U., Russia, and the U.N.), the 2002 Arab Initiative (in reality, Saudi), and the Annapolis Conference.
Abbas will obtain massive support from U.N. member states, which will endorse recognition but have no legal effect. If they get as far as voting on the recommendation, it will be a gesture of high symbolism yes – but just a gesture. For Palestine to feel like and vote with all of the rights of a member state, its application must first get the green light from the Security Council.
Israelis and Palestinians are now engaged in an open diplomatic tussle over winning over the most hesitant countries, particularly the Europeans. European Union members may tip the scales – and they would if they had a common foreign policy and voted together. But that isn’t the case. That is why it is feared that come September, we’ll have yet another opportunity to demonstrate European division and the poor state of transatlantic relations. The U.S. and the E.U. could come out of this collision of locomotives weakened and wounded – something that countries with their own aspirations in the region will take advantage of: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran undoubtedly, but also China and Russia.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.
