Navon - The True Meaning of September

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
19 September '11

http://navonsblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/true-meaning-of-september.html

The mounting diplomatic tension over the upcoming UN vote on Palestinian statehood is somewhat puzzling since this vote already took place twice. On December 15, 1988, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution with an overwhelming majority (104 in favor, 2 against, and 36 abstentions) calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip. The General Assembly passed a similar resolution on December 18, 2008. The new resolution expected to pass in the General Assembly will thus be redundant.

It will also be irrelevant since General Assembly resolutions are not binding in international law. They are mere recommendations. The UN Charter does not grant the General Assembly the power to establish states, and the idea that Israel owes its existence to a UN vote is a misconception. On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly endorsed the recommendation of UNSCOP (United Nations Special Committee on Palestine) to divide the British Mandate between a Jewish state and an Arab state. This was a mere recommendation that became moot as soon as it was passed since the Arab League rejected it flatly and since the Arab armies attacked the nascent Jewish state.

Nor can the General Assembly accept a new member state without the Security Council’s recommendation. Kosovo (which is recognized by 75 countries) is not a UN member because Russia is blocking its membership at the Security Council. The US Government has already announced that it will veto the admission of “Palestine” at the UN without a prior peace agreement with Israel. France and Britain, for their part, are wavering. Yet, even without a US veto, how can the Security Council accept a state that has not been declared and therefore doesn’t exist?

The Palestinians' Unilateral "Kosovo Strategy": Implications for the PA and Israel

Dan Diker
Institute for Contemporary Affairs (JCPA)
No. 575
January-February '10

Mahmoud Abbas' new precondition that the international community recognize the 1967 lines in the West Bank as the new Palestinian border bolsters the assessment that the Palestinians have largely abandoned a negotiated settlement and instead are actively pursuing a unilateral approach to statehood.

Senior Palestinian officials note that Palestinian unilateralism is modeled after Kosovo's February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia. European and U.S. support for Kosovo's unilateral declaration has led the Palestinian leadership to determine that geopolitical conditions are ripe to seek international endorsement of its unilateral statehood bid, despite that fact that leading international jurists have suggested that the cases of Kosovo and the Palestinian Authority are historically and legally different.

The Palestinians are legally bound to negotiate a bilateral solution with Israel. Unilateral Palestinian threats to declare statehood have been rebuffed thus far by the European powers and the United States.

The Palestinian "Kosovo strategy" includes a campaign of delegitimization of Israel, seeking to isolate Israel as a pariah state, while driving a wedge between Israel and the United States. The unilateral Palestinian bid for sovereignty will also likely turn the Palestinians into the leading petitioner against the State of Israel at the International Criminal Court. Although the PA is not a state and therefore should have no legal standing before the court, the petition it submitted to the court after the Gaza war was not rejected by the ICC.

Finally, a unilateral Palestinian quest for the 1947 lines may well continue even if the 1967 lines are endorsed by the United Nations. The PLO's 1988 declaration of independence was based on UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which recognizes the 1947 partition plan for Palestine, not the 1967 lines, as the basis for the borders of Israel and a Palestinian state.

(Read full report)

Dan Diker is Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where he is also a senior foreign policy analyst. He is also an Adjunct Fellow of the Hudson Institute in Washington.
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