An Israeli nightmare: peaceful diplomacy for a Palestinian state
Tel Aviv (AsiaNews) - Yesterday, Chile recognized the Palestinian state within 1967 borders, that is, within the territories under Israeli occupation since the Arab-Israeli war of June '67.
Just as 2010 was ending, the President of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and of the Palestinian Authority, Mr. Mahmood Abbas, known also as Abu Mazen, inaugurated the site of the new Embassy of Palestine in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, which is an increasingly influential player in international affairs. Not long before then, Brazil had declared its recognition of the Palestinian State “within the 1967 borders,” i.e. in the territories under Israeli occupation since the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Several other Latin American countries soon followed Brazil’s example, and it is quite probable that other countries too, in Latin America and elsewhere, will do so in the foreseeable future. President Abu Mazen placed these developments firmly within the context of the search for peace with the neighbouring State of Israel. He noted, though, the current absence of any serious effort towards such peace, and called for new thinking, and new initiatives, given that the former “peace process” was not bearing fruit, and was not even any longer “in process” at all.
These remarkable developments (unthinkable even a few years ago) are a further stage in the innovative strategy of President Abu Mazen and his internationally-esteemed Prime Minister, Mr. Fayad, to end the occupation and achieve freedom for the occupied Palestinian territories, by peaceful means, through patient diplomacy. Together the two statesmen have presided over a notable re-make of the pre-State Palestinian institutions in the West Bank, gaining the respect of the United States, Europe and others. Together with their key colleagues in the leadership, they are leaving no one in any doubt as to their territorial claims being satisfied with about 22% of what they would consider their historic homeland of Palestine, namely the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 – and consequently, their full recognition of the State of Israel itself, within its own borders, which include the remaining 78% of historic Palestine. Unavoidably, of course, they point out that it was impossible for them to negotiate with Israel while Israel continues, on a daily basis, to expand its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, thus “consuming” the very territory that is to be freed under a peace treaty. Negotiating under such conditions, they point out, is not credible.
Israel indeed has refused even urgent pleas from the United States to “freeze” its settlement activities, if only for 90 days, to give peace talks a chance. As it turned out, the American themselves are lucky that Israel refused the limited “90 day freeze,” since the U.S. Administration had rashly offered Prime Minister Netanyahu a promise not to ask for any further extension of the “freeze” once the “90 day” temporary (and partial) freeze was over. If Prime Minister Netanyahu had accepted, an impossible situation would have been created. The peace negotiations, given the extensive subject matter to be covered, could not have been completed in only three months, and with the renewal of the colonization drive on the 91st day, the Palestinians would have been obliged to withdraw, while the United States would have looked foolish if it did not then again call upon to Israel to renew the “freeze.”
UN recognition
The impasse has confirmed for President Abu Mazen and Prime Minister Fayad the wisdom of their diplomatic strategy in three stages. Its first stage, the building-up of credible national institutions, under the cover of the “Palestinian Authority” (by itself an interim agency, recognized by Israel, for the semi-autonomous administration of parts of the occupied territories), is almost complete. The second stage is gaining recognition by individual States of this reality as a State, and it is now well underway. The third stage would be recognition by the United Nations Organization. This ultimate stage is being carefully prepared. First of all, they aim for a new UN Security Council Resolution reaffirming the illegality of Israel’s colonization activities in the occupied territories. This Resolution, which could be introduced this month, is intended to be couched in sober terms, without excessive “anti-Israeli” rhetoric, so as to make it hard for the U.S. to veto it, and hard for other countries not to vote for it. The U.S. may indeed abstain, arguing that it was not “timely”, not “opportune,” or “not helpful at this precise time”; but if there is nothing much in the Resolution except the direct application of international law (which absolutely forbids an occupying power to settle elements of its own population in the occupied territory), and references to previous UN Security Council Resolutions, how could the U.S. justify giving in to Israeli demands to actually “veto” it? Without a U.S. veto, and with at least most (but perhaps all) other members voting in favour of it, the draft will become a binding Resolution of the UN Security Council. Subsequently – and this is the fourth stage - when enough countries (that are not declared enemies or adversaries of Israel) have accorded bilateral recognition to the “Palestinian State within the 1967 borders”, the time will have come for that State to seek admission to the United Nations Organization itself.
Thereupon, several things will happen, but first of all these: Any intervention by Israel in the areas effectively governed by the State of Palestine (i.e. the areas currently administered by the Palestinian Authority) will be considered internationally as aggression against another State. Moreover, negotiations on recovering for the State of Palestine the remainder of the now occupied territories, will no longer simply be negotiations between a “national liberation movement” and a State, but negotiations between two States, of equal dignity and legal standing, one of which (Israel) is keeping under its belligerent occupation significant portions of the territory of the other (Palestine).
It is an ambitious strategy, to be sure, but as the first wave of recognitions has demonstrated, a possible one, a strategy that may succeed. It is also, at present, the Palestinian leadership feels, the only possible strategy. Its chances for success are based on these two fundamental premises: As a matter of substance, practically the whole world agrees with its aim: freedom for the Palestinians in a “State within the 1967 borders”; again, the whole world agrees about the illegality of any settlement activity by Israel in the occupied territories. Moreover, more and more governments, in the West too, perceive it as hopeless simply to wait for the essential purpose, freedom for the Palestinians in a “State within the 1967 borders”, to be achieved directly through negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, under the present conditions. Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel has been insisting on this being the only way, but the credibility of his position is being seriously undermined by Israel’s on-going colonization of the territory of the future Palestinian State. That credibility received a further blow last month, perhaps a fatal blow, when Israel’s own Foreign Minister, Mr. Avigdor Liebermann, publicly instructed an assembly of Israel’s Ambassadors throughout the world, that the Prime Minister’s stated policy goal was, not only wrong, but also unachievable, and would never be supported by the Council of Ministers.
If this is the way things are, and provided President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayad can keep control of their institutions and their people, it is not at all unlikely that the cumulative recognitions of their Palestinian State may become a stampede, unstoppable until it inevitably culminates in recognition by the UN itself. Under such circumstances, the United States too may not find it feasible, may not indeed find it useful, oppose it, in isolation from even its own friends and allies.
Israel’s counter-offensive
The present Government in Israel may not be able to agree what to do - as its own Foreign Minister in effect says - but it is surely in agreement about what should not be done by others. The prospect of international recognition of a peaceful “Palestinian State within the 1967 borders” (which in the past would have been met in Israel with jubilation, or at least, relief) now appears to it as a “nightmare scenario” – perhaps almost as much as a “nuclearized” Iran. Israel’s entire diplomatic apparatus has been ordered, on an emergency basis, to do everything possible – and more - to frustrate it. Israel’s diplomats everywhere have been ordered to warn all countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel, that such recognition would be destructive to the chances for peace (how exactly, is not easy to understand). But this is not all, in his now famous policy speech to Israel’s ambassadors, the Foreign Minister warned that the Palestinians would be punished (“with sticks”) if they persisted in their diplomatic initiatives. This may not be an empty threat. Israel controls all facets of life in the occupied West Bank, including special official and unofficial “benefits” and “exceptions” for members of the ruling establishment (called “V.I.P.” on their special identity cards) and their families. Some months ago, for example, at the last moment, President Abu Mazen, ordered his representative in Geneva to withdraw support from a UN Human Rights Council motion critical of Israel. The story in the media was that the President had just been threatened, personally, by the head of Israel’s General Security Service. Some stories in the media said that the threat had been to deny permission for a lucrative cellular phone enterprise belonging to the President’s son. There was a huge scandal among the Palestinians, and a commission of enquiry was set up. The enquiry cleared the President. But the story, true or untrue in the specific case, was a reminder of the degree of control Israeli officials can at any time exercise.
To wield such “sticks” (or others) to suppress nonviolent, peaceful diplomatic initiatives might, of course, hurt Israel’s image. As long as severe restrictions on Palestinians are imposed in the interest of preventing violence and terrorism, the West generally considers them understandable, even though there may be debate, and there is always debate, even in Israel itself, as to whether particular measures are actually necessary and proportionate. To wield “the stick” to suppress peaceful diplomatic activity may be regarded even by Israel’s best friends, and by many Israelis themselves, as quite another matter. To do so might also hurt security for Israelis, and not in the very long run either, in that it may drive too many Palestinians to despair of ever ending the occupation and achieving their freedom peacefully. It may, in connection with this, delegitimize the current Palestinian leadership, and sow the seeds for another violent uprising, perhaps even for a repeat in the West Bank of the truly nightmarish experience of the Gaza Strip, which is still in the hands of a merciless terrorist organization and its even more cruel allies.
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