Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is said to be preparing to address the UN General Assembly on Friday next week, setting the stage for a dramatic diplomatic showdown with the Palestinians. He will speak on the same day that Mahmoud Abbas, Leader of Palestine, who is due to deliver a landmark speech calling on the global body to support Palestinian statehood.
“The General Assembly is not a place where Israel usually receives a fair hearing,” Mr Netanyahu said on Thursday. “But I still decided to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it.”
The Israeli government, which opposes the Palestinian UN bid, had originally considered Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, to go to New York. Mr Peres is widely seen to be a less divisive figure on the international stage than the prime minister. However, a failure by Mr Netanyahu to turn up at the UN next week could also have been interpreted to be a wrong face to the UN at a time when Israel is already facing growing diplomatic isolation.
It is safe to say that the US government is dreading the prospect of a UN Security Council vote on Palestine’s bid for statehood later this month. At present the Americans reckon they could well lose such a vote 14-1, which would be a humiliation. It is possible that Britain, France and Germany (in particular) might abstain – but the Americans aren’t counting on it.
US officials say that, if it comes to it, they will take the odium of being the sole pro-Israeli vote. Why? Well, there are official and unofficial arguments. Officially, the Americans say that, although they are in favour of a two-state solution, it has to be the product of negotiation between the two parties. They also worry aloud that the statehood bid could provoke a second intifada. And they worry – although not as much as the Israelis – that Palestinian statehood could be used as part of the drive to “delegitimise” Israel, through international legal action.
Set against that, however, is the damage that such a vote would do to President Obama’s multi-year effort to repair relations with the Muslim world. The Palestinians have artfully constructed their resolution so that it incorporates lots of ideas and language that the US has already endorsed. A vote against such a resolution would mean that all the favourable images from Obama’s Cairo speech – and from the US support for the Libyan and Egyptian revolutions – would be badly tarnished.
So why take the risk? Domestic politics obviously comes into it. This is a presidential election year. The power of the Jewish vote is, in some ways, surprising. The Jewish population in the US is only about 6.5m, or just over 2% of the population. Not all Jews are hardline supporters of the Netanyahu government, and they tend to vote Democratic anyway – which might suggest that President Obama could take a risk on the UN vote. On the other hand, in a country where half the population fails to vote, Jewish voters tend to turn out at the polls - and they are important in key swing states like Florida, Pennsylvania and California. If the US did not “stand by Israel” at the UN, the Republican Party would have a field day. The mood of Republicans in Congress can be gauged by the fact that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has just proposed a bill that would slash funding to the UN - if the Palestine vote goes through.
The announcement suggests that the Israeli government now has little faith in the last-ditch effort by US and European negotiators to stop the Palestinian drive for statehood at the UN. According to several officials and diplomats, Mr Abbas on Wednesday rebuffed an alternative “package” that was drafted and presented by Tony Blair, the international community’s Middle East envoy.
The deal would have involved a statement by the Middle East Quartet (the US, UN, Russia and the European Union) calling for a return to direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The statement would have included a timeline for negotiations and clearer terms of reference than were offered in the past – for example on the likely borders of a future Palestinian state. The package, according to several people involved in the talks, also held out the promise of a UN resolution, though one that would have stopped short of endorsing Palestinian statehood at this point.
President Mahmoud Abbas vowed "no retreat" from plans to seek full UN membership for a Palestinian state next week, despite reports that the leader may alter his decision under pressure from the United States and European Union, Reuters reported. "Going to the United Nations to request full membership for Palestine in the international organization is an inevitable thing and there is no retreat from it," the WAFA agency quoted Abbas as saying. "Despite the pressures exerted on us, Palestine will go to the United Nations on the 23rd of the current month to request full membership," he added. Abbas is scheduled to address the General Assembly on that day.
Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, reportedly decided not to submit an application to the UN Security Council and will drop the "state within 1967 borders" provision from the bid he is to bring before the UN General Assembly.
Before any moves at the UN, Abbas will meet members of the Middle East Quartet, the Debka File news website reported, citing anonymous sources. It said the final decision will be taken on Friday.
The decision not to turn to the UN Security Council was anticipated, reports RT correspondent Paula Slier. The US strongly objects to the bid and promised to use all its diplomatic strength to oppose it. Washington said it would veto the bid if it comes to the UN Security Council.
This is different from applying for recognition to the UN General Assembly, however, and that body is likely to support the Palestinian bid. The reported “watering down” of the bid to the General Assembly may ensure such a decision is passed. After approval by the General Assembly, Palestine would receive observer status at the UN.
The UN bid also faces opposition among Palestinians. On Wednesday, the Hamas leadership called the plan “an unnecessary tactical move” which would compromise Palestinians’ position in their conflict with Israel. Hamas does not recognize Israel as a state and calls for the return of Palestinian territories controlled by the Jewish state through strength of arms.
The Israeli government has also objected to the Palestinian statehood bid and said if it did pass, “there would be consequences,” although the Israeli government did not specify what the consequences would be.
And according to Israeli author Gilad Atzmon, those consequences aren’t actually the threat they’re being made out to be.
“More than half of the Israeli people support the 2-state solution”, the author of The Wandering Who told RT. “It is very clear to me that even within the Israeli government, there is a lot of enthusiasm about the two-state solution. I’m not sure about [Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister] Avigdor Lieberman, but I think that Netanyahu is very happy with it – and the reason is very simple. The two-state solution would save the Israelis from a demographic disaster. However, in the United States, the situation is very different. It is very clear that Zionist lobbyists in America are very much against this Palestinian United Nations initiative”.
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