Abbas' U.N. Bid for Palestinian Statehood

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright September 23, 2011
All Rights Reserved.                                         

           Defying the United States and pleas from President Barack Obama, 76-year-old Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas made his passionate plea for U.N. membership to the General Assembly.  Abbas’ plea attempts to bypass direct talks with Israel, applying maximum pressure for recognition. “My people desire to exercise their right to enjoy a normal life like the rest of humanity,” said Abbas to cheers in the General Assembly.  Only one small problem with Abbas’ plea:  When he says “his people,” he’s referring only to the population he controls in the West Bank—territory Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War.  Palestinians had no sovereign territory before the Six Day War.  Abbas’ only claim on so-called Palestinian land stems from Israel’s spoils following a war that the late Palestine Liberation Organization founder Yasser Arafat supported with all his heart and resources.

            When Gamel Abdel Nasser’s Egyptian military, together with Jordan and Syria, attacked Israel in 1967, it was a war of annihilation, attempting, as Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad likes to say, “to wipe Israel off the map.”  When the dust settled June 10, 1967, Israel controlled Egypt’s Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, Jordan’s West Bank and Syria’s Golan Heights.  Abbas now asks the U.N. to recognize a Palestinian that includes all three territories plus Arab-controlled East Jerusalem. While Palestinians like to talk of Israeli occupation, the fact is that they occupy and seek sovereignty of Israeli spoils taken as a buffer after the 1967 War.  Abbas claims that he represents the Palestinian people but, in reality, only controls about 1.5 million in the West Bank.  Hamas evicted Abbas and the Palestinian Authority from Gaza June 14, 2007 and want no part of any state recognizing Israel.

            Israel objects to Abbas’ unilateral bid for statehood not because they don’t agree in principle with a Palestinian state but because Abbas can only speak for Palestinians in the West Bank.  Calling for a “Palestinian Spring” to go with the Mideast’s “Arab Spring,” where previously repressive regimes are replaced by democratic governments, Abbas hoped to build support for a Palestinian state.  “Palestinians should first make  peace with Israel and get their state,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, rejecting the premise of a state by U.N. resolution.  Before Abbas’ proposal can be taken seriously, he must make peace with Hamas in Gaza.  So far, Hamas has rejected any attempt to reconcile with Abbas’ West Bank. Without a formal unity treaty or declaration with Gaza, Abbas is in no position to negotiate for Hamas or any other Palestinian group.

            Prior Palestinian peace proposals have been built around returning to the prewar 1967 borders.  Arafat, who died Nov. 11, 2004, never realized his dream of Palestinian statehood.  His propensity toward armed resistance and reluctance to enter into bilateral agreements with Israel made peace impossible.  Aside from a few successes at Camp David in 1978 with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and in Oslo in 1993 with former President Bill Clinton, the Palestinians have been at war with Israel since 1948.  Arafat played lip service to the West while he collected billions in foreign aid while he simultaneously used Hamas, Islam Jihad, Hezbollah and other extremist groups to fight a proxy war with Israel.  “We aspire for and seek a greater and more effective role for the  United Nations in working to achieve a just and comprehensive peace . . .” said Abbas, bypassing direct talks with Israel.

            Abbas thinks that if he gains U.N. recognition he’s closer to a Palestinian state.  In reality, he’s closer to a U.S veto in the U.N. Security Council.  If Abbas really wants to make a credible bid for statehood, he’d ask the U.N. for recognition and statehood in only the West Bank.  If he asked for his state in the West Bank with Ramallah as its capital, there’d be less objections from the U.S. and Israel.  Asking for East Jerusalem as capital and Gaza is unrealistic.  Hamas’ Gazan leader Ismail Haniyeh has rejected Abbas’ bid at peacemaking.  Hamas has’t changed its position about Israel’s destruction one iota.  “Peace will not come through statements and resolution at the U.N.,” said Obama, putting Abbas on notice that he faces a U.S. veto in the U.N. Security Council.  Had Abbas started from scratch, tempered his demands and asked for statehood in the West Bank, he might have succeeded.

            Striking a deal with Israel and the Palestinians isn’t rocket science.  Past deals have failed precisely because they went too far with too many demands.  After over 63 years of war with Israel, Abbas would have been better off asking for statehood in the West Bank with Ramallah as his capital.  He has virtually no control of the Gaza Strip, where Hamas calls the shots.  Unless Abbas can broker a unity agreement with Hamas, he can only speak at this point for the West Bank.  Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu would be amenable to a West Bank state as long as it recognized the rights of Israeli settlers.  For a peace deal, Israel would bend over backwards paying the West Bank government to help maintain security and other vital services.  “The truth is that Israel wants peace, the truth is that I want peace,” said Netanyahu.  “We cannot achieve peace through U.N. resolutions.”

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

©1999-2005 Discobolos Consulting Services, Inc.
(310) 204-8300
All Rights Reserved.