jerusalem | Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is set to address the United Nations Sept. 23 to ask the world to recognize an independent Palestinian state — a move many Israelis are dismissing as merely symbolic.
Palestinians, however, hope that the high-profile maneuvering on a global stage will yield large-scale results.
The General Assembly, meeting next week in New York, seems likely to recognize a Palestinian state as a nonmember observer state. This status, identical to that of the Vatican, requires only a simple majority of its 193 members, most of them developing nations in the Palestinians’ corner.
However, the path to full membership seems blocked because it goes through the Security Council, the powerful 15-member body where the United States promises a veto.
Gilad Erdan, a Cabinet minister in Israel, said this week that his government is conducting a list-ditch campaign to prevent the General Assembly from voting in favor of Palestinian statehood. Israel insists Palestinian independence can be reached only through negotiations, he said.
But, he acknowledged, Israel is fighting a losing battle.
“We are making every effort that we can in order to prevent the mistake of a unilateral declaration,” said Erdan, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party who will be part of Israel’s delegation to the upcoming session of the U.N. General Assembly.
Formally, General Assembly recognition would be mainly declarative. But Erdan warned that a winning Palestinian vote could undermine future peace talks by hardening Palestinian positions.
Additionally, senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath said the Palestinians would use their upgraded status to seek full membership in U.N. bodies such as the World Health Organization, UNESCO and the International Court of Justice.
Membership in such bodies is usually limited to full-member states, raising the possibility of a challenge in each case. “That will make life difficult for Israel because we will have to fight each one,” said Alan Baker, a former legal adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
Of more immediate concern to Israelis is the possibility that the vote will trigger a return to the violence that typified the first half of the previous decade, when Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli retaliations were the order of the day. Israeli media have warned of mass marches into Jerusalem, the besieging of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the storming of borders and attacking of army checkpoints.
A senior Palestinian security official said Abbas has given clear orders to prevent any friction with the Israelis at checkpoints and settlements, but a PLO special committee to oversee “field activities” does not include Hamas.
Israeli authorities also fear that unofficial activity, even a provocative act by a lone individual, could spark wider violence. Israeli security forces have been training and stockpiling riot-control equipment in anticipation of trouble.
If the General Assembly vote goes in the Palestinians’ favor, Shaath said they will appeal to the International Criminal Court “to protect our people from the Israeli crimes.”
That court allows cases against individuals, whether members of the military or government. Although Israel — like the United States — is not a member, 116 countries, including most of Europe, are. Israeli soldiers or officials could face threat of arrest in any of them.
The flip side: A report from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel noted that if the Palestinians join international conventions on torture, the rights of children and the rules of engagement in war, they might themselves be exposed to charges by Israeli victims of suicide bombings, rocket barrages or other attacks.
Israeli officials fear international recognition will make the Palestinians intransigent in any future talks; however, another school of thought says that recognition might give the Palestinians enough confidence to try their hand again at talks.