Here is the problem with "international efforts to avoid the Palestinian UN bid." This introductory statement is not an attempt to avoid giving 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 Palestine Liberation Organization has been talking repeatedly about this gambit for almost a year. Why only now, when the PLO is so thoroughly committed to this effort, is the United States government staging a campaign against unilateral independence? The failure to start earlier has destroyed any attempt to avoid this disastrous outcome.
Second, the US government did virtually nothing to mobilize other countries to oppose this campaign. 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. The US failed to do so.
Third, the US government has never used real leverage to persuade the PLO to relent or to convince other countries to oppose United Nations General Assembly backing for a unilateral independence bid. No threats have been made; no benefits offered; no 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, protected from their irresponsible behavior by the knowledge that the United States will veto the proposal in the Security Council. The US government will take the heat while the others can play progressive, humanitarian friends of the Arab world and Muslims.
As for the PLO, without some threat of an aid cut-off, an end or sharp reduction in US diplomatic support for the Palestinian Authority, or some 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--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 itself is based.
The PLO simply abandons the principle that any solution will be on the basis of mutual negotiations. It does so after it rejected the US-proposed solution of 2000 and after rejecting any negotiations for two years. The US refusal to make this argument parallels the Obama administration's refusal to criticize or use leverage against the PLO, thus guaranteeing US failure.
Equally, there is no attempt to argue the future implications of this gambit. After all, if the PLO 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 US 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 PLO at a time when it is in partnership (albeit a very conflictual one) with Hamas, a group that opposes compromise, peaceful resolution, the existence of Israel, US interests, and much more. The US government has not even pointed out that the government to be recognized includes this major pro-genocide, terrorist, revolutionary Islamist, anti-Semitic, and bitterly anti-western component.
Since the PLO has nothing to lose internationally, it has no incentive to drop the campaign. Since it can make real gains by maintaining 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 Fateh hierarchies--make peace or even negotiate seriously. Equally, the leadership does not want to make peace with Israel because most of its members are to one extent or another hardliners--as in the refusal of PLO 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 PLO 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 it to change ever possibly succeed?-
Published 12/9/2011 © bitterlemons.org 
