Israeli/Palestinian Conflict Obama anti-Israel

BARRY RUBIN: OBAMA’S MOVE TO COUNTER PA BID FOR STATEHOOD WILL FAIL…….

Intentionally.

The Tundra Tabloids is of the opinion that the US administration’s non-response to the PA’s announcement last year, of  its intention to appeal to the UN General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian state, is due to its sympathy of the Palestinian position.

Don’t let the fact that the US will veto the motion in the UN Security Council fool you, they wanted to use the threat of not vetoing the measure to apply pressure on Israel. Notice that they didn’t apply equal pressure on the PA with the threat of voting against it. It speaks greatly of the Obama administration’s intention of giving the Palestinians an international diplomatic victory, not of its ineptitude. KGS

International Efforts to Avoid the Palestinian UN Bid Will Inevitably Fail Because Western Policy is So Bad

By Barry Rubin

I have seen about 20 articles today about why the UN bid isn’t in the PA’s interest and why they should stop. But none of these articles really point out that the opposite is true: the PA has pretty much nothing to lose. Will the United States cut off all aid? Of course not. Will it make them moreun popular at home? No. If it kills talks with Israel? That’s good. They don’t need or want them. If it delays the creation of a real state? Since the PA can’t and won’t negotiate for a compromise agreement it doesn’t matter. The PA will get a huge majority in the General Assembly and that will seem a diplomatic victory. If the United States vetos, the PA has an excuse for not succeeding.

If you don’t confront the reality of why a country or group act the way it does–and why a weak Western policy makes radical behavior possible–any discussion of the issue is a waste of time.

Here is the problem with “international efforts to avoid the Palestinian UN bid.” To say this is not an attempt to avoid giving some constructive advice. Rather, giving constructive advice requires using this as a starting point and explaining why this is true.

First, it’s too late. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been talking repeatedly about this gambit for almost a year. Why is it only now, when it is so thoroughly committed to this effort, is the U.S. government staging a campaign against unilateral independence? The failure to start earlier has destroyed any attempt to avoid this disastrous outcome.

Second, the U.S. government did virtually nothing to mobilize other countries to oppose this campaign. What should have happened is that starting in late 2010, the White House should have begun lining up votes. American ambassadors should have been given high-priority instructions to talk with the leaders of the countries to which they were accredited and put together a coalition to avoid the coming crisis. It failed to do so.

Third, the U.S. government has never used real leverage to persuade the PA to relent or to convince other countries to oppose the UN General Assembly backing for a unilateral independence bid. No threats have been made; no benefits offered; power applied.

Clearly, this is not how international affairs should be conducted. Given neither incentive nor warning, dozens of countries have no compelling reason to vote “no.” On the contrary, they know they are getting a free ride. They can vote “yes” or at most abstain protecting from their irresponsible behavior by the knowledge that the United States will veto the proposal in the Security Council. The U.S. government will take the heat while the others can play progressive, humanitarian friends of the Arab world and Muslims.

As for the PA, without some threat of an aid cut-off, an end or sharp reduction in U.S. diplomatic support, or other price, why should it drop a high-publicity, no-cost campaign that—as we will see in a moment—offers so many political benefits.

Equally debilitating is the failure of the counter-campaign to use the most serious and important arguments—that are the only ones that might be effective. The Palestinian strategy breaks every commitment made to Israel and internationally guaranteed since 1993. These are the very commitments on which the Palestinian Authority (PA) itself is based.

The PA simply abandons the principle that any solution will be on the basis of mutual negotiations. It does so after the PA rejected the U.S.-proposed solution of 2000 and it also rejects a negotiated solution following two years of the PA’s rejection of negotiations. The U.S. refusal to make this argument parallels the Obama Administration’s refusal to criticize or use leverage against the PA, thus guaranteeing its own failure.

Equally, there is no use of the argument about the future implications of this gambit. After all, if the PA has an internationally recognized state it has no incentive to negotiate or compromise in future. Equally, Israel’s main asset—the ability to trade territory in exchange for the creation of a Palestinian state—is removed with no concomitant gain. What then is Israel’s incentive to make more concessions and take more risks?

Thus, the unilateral independence campaign and its at least partial success—certainly from a public relations’ perspective—kills the peace process for many years to come. Yet this fact has not energized the campaign, galvanized the U.S. government into strong action, or persuaded other countries to oppose the proposal.

As if all this weren’t enough, the prize is being given to the PA at a time when it is in partnership (albeit a very conflictual one) with Hamas, a group that opposes any compromise, peaceful resolution, existence of Israel, U.S. interests, and much more. The U.S government has not even pointed out that the government to be recognized includes a major pro-genocide, terrorist, revolutionary Islamist, antisemitic, and bitterly anti-Western component.

Since the PA has nothing to lose internationally, it has no incentive to drop the campaign. Since it can make real gains by putting on this effort, even if the United States ultimately vetoes the demand, once again it has no reason to change course.

Turning to the internal Palestinian situation, the current leadership cannot—due to public opinion, Hamas, and militant elements in the PA plus Fatah hierarchies—make peace or even negotiate seriously.

Equally, the leadership does not want to make peace with Israel because most of them are hardliners or at least relatively so, as in the refusal of PA leader Mahmoud Abbas to accept Israel as a Jewish state, end the conflict even in exchange for a Palestinian state, and agree to resettle Palestinian refugees in Palestine. The movement’s goal remains to wipe Israel off the map. Getting a state without commitment, concession, or compromise furthers that goal.

Moreover, this initiative coincides perfectly with shorter-term PA leadership goals. It doesn’t want to negotiate with Israel, doesn’t want to reach a compromise solution, and thus wasting the entire year of 2011 on this bid gives it an ideal strategy to mobilize internal support, blame Israel, and get everything it wants for nothing in return. How can any non-punishing effort to persuade them to change ever possibly succeed?

PS: Negotiation EU style. The EU position is that if the Palestiniansdrop their bid, the EU will support raising them one level at the UN with the vprospect of more promotions in future. In exchange the Palestinians do nothing to deserve such a promotion. Moreover, the PA knows that hardly any EU country will vote against them. So what’s their incentive? To examine this kind of bargaining is to show how ridiculous it is.

3 Responses

  1. If the administration was sincere about moving the peace process forward, he would have gotten publicly indignant about the FACT that the PA refused to negotiate with Israel during his first 21 months in office. The Oslo treaty required negotiations WITHOUT preconditions. Instead, the President got publicly indignant about Jews building homes.

    Now, the Administration is threatening to veto the Palestinian bid at the UN because statehood is supposed to come about from face-to-face negotiations. It’s a little bit late to be making that point. Those who say the U.S. is now in a pickle because we have to veto this Arab statehood application ignore the fact that we were supposed to demand the Arabs negotiate all along; not wait until they went to the UN to make the point.

    This is just another fine example of O’Bama Administration incompetence. When they aren’t being hostile to Israel, they’re just plain incompetent.

    1. Hi TINSC, I really do think it was quite all on purpose, just plain incompetence would have been more welcome than the overtly hostile animus he and his admin have for Israel.

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