Showing posts with label Palestine vs Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palestine vs Israel. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Q+A - What's all the fuss about a Palestinian U.N. upgrade?
By Louis Charbonneau | Reuters – Thu, Nov 29, 2012
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Palestinian Authority is expected to win an upgrade of its observer status at the United Nations on Thursday from "entity" to "non-member state," which would amount to implicit U.N. recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been leading the campaign to win support for a U.N. General Assembly resolution raising its status. The move comes on the heels of an eight-day conflict this month between Israel and Islamists in the Gaza Strip, who are pledged to Israel's destruction and oppose his efforts toward a negotiated peace.
Following are questions and answers about the Palestinian move on Thursday - the 65th anniversary of the U.N. vote to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states - and what it means for the 4.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
WHAT IS NON-MEMBER STATE STATUS?
The Palestinian Authority is currently considered an "entity," not a state at the United Nations. If the resolution is approved by the U.N. General Assembly as expected, that status will change to "non-member state," like the Vatican.
Switzerland also had non-member state status until it joined the United Nations as a full voting member 10 years ago.
Recognition as a non-member state will have a certain symbolic value, giving the Palestinians a higher profile in terms of speaking order during U.N. meetings. But they will still be unable to vote during General Assembly sessions.
The change will also have important legal implications.
The Palestinians will be able to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) and some specialized U.N. bodies like the International Atomic Energy Agency.
CAN THE U.N. RECOGNIZE PALESTINE AS A SOVEREIGN STATE?
The United Nations cannot grant countries recognition. That is something that is done on a bilateral basis. However, the granting of non-member state status to the Palestinian Authority does acknowledge that the majority of U.N. member states do recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Traditionally, universal recognition of state sovereignty is accompanied by full membership in the United Nations. That is something the Palestinians sought last year with much fanfare but failed to achieve because the United States used the threat of a veto in the Security Council to block the Palestinian U.N. membership application.
HOW MANY VOTES DO THE PALESTINIANS NEED?
The Palestinian Authority needs a simple majority for the resolution to pass. Assuming all U.N. member states are present and none is barred from voting for non-payment of dues, the Palestinians will need the support of 97 of the 193 members.
The Palestinians say that 132 countries recognize an independent state of Palestine. They are hoping for over 130 'yes' votes from the assembly and a strong show of support from Europe. U.N. diplomats say it may achieve that.
WILL ANYTHING CHANGE ON THE GROUND AFTER A YES VOTE
There will be no immediate changes. The West Bank will remain under Israeli occupation and settlement building will no doubt continue. However, the Palestinians say the change in status will alter the rules of the game, arguing that the vote means Israel can no longer call the Palestinian Territories "disputed" land. Instead, the land will have been clearly designated as belonging to the Palestinian people, even if the final boundaries still have to be determined.
The same applies to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority has virtually no influence in the 25-mile-long (40-km-long) coastal enclave where 1.6 million Palestinians live.
WILL ISRAEL AND THE UNITED STATES RETALIATE?
The United States and Israel oppose the Palestinian move, saying direct peace talks are the only way to achieve statehood.
Israel has threatened the Palestinians with retaliation for seeking a U.N. status upgrade. It has suggested that it could withhold some taxes and customs duties it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
But in the wake of the latest Gaza conflict, Israel seems reluctant to reveal itself as diplomatically isolated. It has toned down threats of retaliation in the face of wide international support for the initiative, notably among its European allies.
Israel may opt for harsh retaliation if the Palestinians file complaints against the Jewish state at the ICC, which U.N. diplomats say is Israel's main concern at the moment.
The United States has also threatened to withhold financial aid to the Palestinians. If they join any specialized U.N. agencies, Congress will likely seek to cut off U.S. funding to those agencies in accordance with U.S. law.
The United States, which pays 22 percent of the regular U.N. budget, is the biggest financial contributor to the world body.
WHAT ABOUT PEACE TALKS?
Abbas has said he will be ready to revive moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace talks as soon as the U.N. vote is over. That suggests he is prepared to drop a pre-condition that all Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem should be halted before negotiations can resume.
While a number of EU states have applauded this shift in stance, Israel and the United States say that the Palestinian U.N. move will undermine efforts to revive the talks.
The Middle East peace process has been stalled for two years, mainly over Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have expanded despite being deemed illegal by most of the world.
Many Western diplomats complain about the timing of the Palestinian move, which comes weeks after U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election. They say the Palestinians have not given Obama time to push for new peace talks with Israel.
But the diplomats also say that the Palestinian move is no excuse to scrap peace talks. The resolution calls for an immediate resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
(Additional reporting by Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem; Editing by Xavier Briand)
Stung by U.N. defeat, Israel pushes settlement plans
By Crispian Balmer | Reuters – 9 hours ago
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hours after the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to grant de-facto statehood to Palestine, Israel responded on Friday by announcing it was authorising 3,000 new settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
An official, who declined to be named, said the government had also decided to expedite planning work for thousands more homes in a geographically sensitive area close to Jerusalem that critics say would kill off Palestinian hopes of a viable state.
The decision was made on Thursday when it became clear that the U.N. General Assembly was set to upgrade the Palestinians' status in the world body, making them a "non-member state," as opposed to an "entity," boosting their diplomatic clout.
The motion was backed by 138 nations, opposed by nine, while 41 members abstained - a resounding defeat that exposed Israel's growing diplomatic isolation.
An Israeli official had earlier conceded that this represented a "total failure of diplomacy" and warned there would be consequences - which were swift in coming.
Plans to put up thousands of new settler homes in the wake of the Palestinian upgrade were always likely, but the prospect of building in an area known as E-1, which lies near Jerusalem and bisects much of the West Bank, is seen by some as a potential game changer.
"E-1 will signal the end of the two state-solution," said Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli expert on settlements. He added that statutory planning would take another six to nine months to complete, meaning building there was not a foregone conclusion.
About 500,000 Israelis already live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem on land Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war - territory the Palestinians claim for their independent state.
The United States, one of the eight countries to vote alongside Israel at the U.N. General Assembly, said the latest expansion plan was counterproductive to the resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
"This administration - like previous administrations - has been very clear with Israel that these activities set back the cause of a negotiated peace," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a Washington speech.
Clinton argued for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but offered no detailed path forward, saying the United States would help whenever they were ready for direct talks.
"If and when the parties are ready to enter into direct negotiations to solve the conflict, President (Barack) Obama will be a full partner to them," she said.
ABSURD
Ahead of the U.N. vote, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government had argued that the unilateral Palestinian move breached their previous accords and accused the 193-member world body of failing in its responsibilities.
"The General Assembly can resemble the theatre of the absurd, which once a year automatically approves ludicrous, anti-Israeli resolutions," said government spokesman Mark Regev.
"Sometimes these are supported by Europe, sometimes they are not," he added, alluding to the fact that only one European state, the Czech Republic, voted against the Palestinians.
Nonetheless, analysts said the vote exposed the gulf that had opened between Europe and Netanyahu over his handling of the Western-backed administration of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and the depth of EU opposition to settlement expansion.
"The government has failed to appreciate the gravity of the challenge to Israel's fundamental legitimacy in Europe," said Gidi Grinstein, head of the Reut Institute think tank.
"The Palestinian bid in the U.N. is turning out to be a bigger defeat than anticipated."
In many ways, Israel was caught off guard.
Last week, it was fighting Islamist militants in the Gaza Strip, grateful to see much of the West offering support for its determination to stop indiscriminate rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave whose leaders preach Israel's destruction.
The eight-day bombardment ended in a truce that was widely viewed as handing Gaza's Hamas Islamists a PR boost at the expense of Abbas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which has renounced violence in favour of diplomacy.
The West pumped billions into Abbas' administration over the years to bolster a partner for Middle East peace and felt it had to rally to his support in New York. Before the Gaza conflict, the Palestinians said they would win 115 'yes' votes at the United Nations. They ended up with more.
COURT THREAT
By itself, the U.N. upgrade will make little practical difference to the Palestinians or Israelis. But the new position will enable Abbas to seek membership of the International Criminal Court, or ICC, in The Hague if he wants.
That is what worries Israel.
The Geneva Convention forbids occupying powers from moving "parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies," leaving Israeli officials potentially vulnerable to an ICC challenge. Israel says its settlements are legal, citing historical and Biblical ties to the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The Palestinians say they are in no rush to go to the ICC, but the threat is there, putting pressure on Israel to come up with creative solutions to overcome the peace-talks impasse, which the Jewish state blames on Abbas.
"This U.N. vote is a very strong signal to the Israelis that they can't shove this matter under the carpet for any longer," said Alon Liel, former director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. "This is a red light for Israel."
With politicians campaigning ahead of a January 22 election, Israel is unlikely to change course.
Opinion polls suggest Netanyahu's right-wing bloc will win a new term in office. The coalition includes pro-settler parties, and the prime minister's own Likud group appeared to shift to the right in primaries this week, making any land-for-peace compromise with the Palestinians look more complex than ever.
His opponents seized on the U.N. vote, with former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, aspiring to become Israel's second female prime minister, blaming a failure of initiative.
"When we do not initiate, we are imposed upon," she said.
Israeli officials say the Palestinians themselves must show they are ready to make the sort of concessions that they believe are needed to secure an accord - such as renouncing any right to return to modern-day Israel for refugees and their descendants.
But analysts say that with the elections out of the way, the new government will have a period of calm to try once more to end their decades-old conflict with the Palestinians.
"The strategy toward the Palestinian Authority and statehood is likely to be on the top of the agenda of the next government in the winter," said the Reut Institute's Grinstein.
"The outcome of its strategic reassessment may well be active engagement in upgrading the powers and responsibilities of the Palestinian Authority toward statehood, and eventually recognising the Palestinian Authority as a state."
If E-1 building goes ahead, the chances of talks resuming will be close to non-existent. (Additional reporting by Ori Lewis and Dan Williams in Jerusalem and by Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Editing by Janet McBride and Peter Cooney)
US denounces Israeli settlement plans
Aljazeera – 8 hours agoRELATED CONTENT
- US denounces Israeli settlement plans
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has criticised Israel's decision to build 3,000 settler homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
"In light of today's announcement, let me reiterate that this administration - like previous administrations - has been very clear with Israel that these activities set back the cause of a negotiated peace," Clinton said on Friday.
"In light of today's announcement, let me reiterate that this administration - like previous administrations - has been very clear with Israel that these activities set back the cause of a negotiated peace," Clinton said on Friday.
Clinton was speaking at a forum in Washington hosted by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, and Ehud Barak, defence minister, were in the audience when she made her remarks.
In a wide-ranging speech also tackling the conflict in Syria and Iran's suspect nuclear programme, Clinton highlighted the troubled Middle East peace process, calling on Israelis and Palestinians to get back to negotiations.
"The most lasting solution to the stalemate in Gaza would be a comprehensive peace between Israel and all Palestinians, led by their legitimate representative, the Palestinian Authority," Clinton said.
Israel revealed the settlement plans in response to a historic vote in the UN General Assembly on Thursday to recognise Palestine within the 1967 borders as a non-member observer state - one which the United States opposed.
"This week's vote should give all of us pause. All sides need to consider carefully the path ahead," Clinton said.
"We all need to work together to find a path forward in negotiations that can deliver on the goal of a two-state solution. That remains our goal.
"If and when the parties are ready to enter into direct negotiations to solve the conflict, President [Barack] Obama will be a full partner to them."
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