The campaign for Palestine to be recognized as a full member of the United Nations has revealed the popularity of the Palestinian cause on the international stage, displayed the uncompromising nature of Israel’s political leadership, and highlighted the end of the road for the Palestinian Authority, which has made it clear that it has no other path to take. Now that the United States has used heavy pressure and strong diplomatic maneuvering to block the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) application for full UN membership in the UN Security Council, the question for Palestinians is where should they go from here and how to frame the next phase of their struggle.
Palestinians watching this political theatre unfold are not surprised by the inability of UN institutions to take a strong stand toward resolving their decades old conflict. During the Palestinians’ 63 years of dispossession, several dozen UN resolutions were directed at Israel over core issues such as refugees, Jerusalem, and borders, as well as its unlawful attacks on its neighbors, and its violations of the human rights of the Palestinians, including deportations, demolitions of homes, settlement expansion, and confiscation of Palestinian land.
All of these resolutions went unimplemented. Instead, the Palestinians - an occupied people - were for 20 years made to negotiate with the occupying power over rights to which they were already entitled under international law.
Predictably, these negotiations yielded little. Instead, the Palestinians saw the continued erosion of their rights and freedoms and the continued loss of their land. Israel colonized more than 50 percent of the West Bank with Jewish settlements, bypass roads networks, and buffer zones. When PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas insisted that Israel at a minimum halt its settlement expansion before the Palestinians continued to negotiate, his request was flatly rejected. Now Abbas has played his last card. The UN bid has exposed the weakness of the strategy of the Palestinian Authority, which has done the running in the name of the PLO.
The campaign for Palestine to be recognized as a full member of the United Nations has revealed the popularity of the Palestinian cause on the international stage, displayed the uncompromising nature of Israel’s political leadership, and highlighted the end of the road for the Palestinian Authority, which has made it clear that it has no other path to take. Now that the United States has used heavy pressure and strong diplomatic maneuvering to block the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) application for full UN membership in the UN Security Council, the question for Palestinians is where should they go from here and how to frame the next phase of their struggle.
Palestinians watching this political theatre unfold are not surprised by the inability of UN institutions to take a strong stand toward resolving their decades old conflict. During the Palestinians’ 63 years of dispossession, several dozen UN resolutions were directed at Israel over core issues such as refugees, Jerusalem, and borders, as well as its unlawful attacks on its neighbors, and its violations of the human rights of the Palestinians, including deportations, demolitions of homes, settlement expansion, and confiscation of Palestinian land.
All of these resolutions went unimplemented. Instead, the Palestinians - an occupied people - were for 20 years made to negotiate with the occupying power over rights to which they were already entitled under international law.
Predictably, these negotiations yielded little. Instead, the Palestinians saw the continued erosion of their rights and freedoms and the continued loss of their land. Israel colonized more than 50 percent of the West Bank with Jewish settlements, bypass roads networks, and buffer zones. When PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas insisted that Israel at a minimum halt its settlement expansion before the Palestinians continued to negotiate, his request was flatly rejected. Now Abbas has played his last card. The UN bid has exposed the weakness of the strategy of the Palestinian Authority, which has done the running in the name of the PLO.