BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- Israelis say a Palestinian appeal to the
United Nations on Thursday for non-voting membership will make peace
less likely, and some Palestinians have reservations, too.
Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas plans to ask the U.N. General Assembly to grant
non-member observer status to the Palestinian Authority for the West
Bank and Gaza.
Khalil Ebed Allah, 57, who lives in the Aida
refugee camp in Bethlehem, worries that Israel, which gives the
Palestinian Authority a percentage of taxes Palestinian workers pay to
Israel, will keep its promise to withhold their money if the United
Nations upgrades the Palestinians' status.
"There could be American sanctions, too," Allah said nervously.
Israel
and the United States are concerned that the Palestinians are trying to
create a state without negotiating a lasting peace with Israel and
solving once and for all the issues that have prevented a resolution to
the conflict.
Palestinians are "trying to grab statehood without
having to compromise with Israel," said David Weinberg, director of
public affairs at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, a
think-tank in Israel.
Rather than leading to a Palestinian state
or improving the prospects for negotiations with Israel, the bid will do
the opposite, Weinberg said. "It will harden positions on all sides and
force Israel to take actions against Abbas' authority that will set any
chances of real peace emerging back for years."
Among the issues
to be decided are the status of Jerusalem, which both Israelis and
Palestinians claim for a capital, the details of borders and security,
mutual recognition and refugee claims.
Palestinian leaders are
pressing ahead, arguing that improving their status at the United
Nations will give them better bargaining power against Israel, which
they say has been stalling on negotiations while expanding settlements
on land Palestinians want for a state.
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior official of the Palestine Liberation
Organization and a former peace negotiator, said upgrading Palestinian
status in the United Nations from observer to non-member state status
will "enshrine our right to self-determination and statehood" and "help
prevent Israel from destroying the chances for peace."
She said
Israel is working against peace by annexing Jerusalem and building a
security barrier on land that should belong in a Palestinian state.
The world must move quickly, "unless there are no more chances of peace," she said.
Unlike
Abbas' failed attempt at gaining full state recognition in 2011,
Thursday's measure does not require Security Council approval or risk a
U.S. veto.
Many U.N. countries are likely to agree to the
Palestinian request, including France, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark and
Norway, according to Israeli news outlet Ynet News. The United States
sees it as "the wrong move," State Department spokeswoman Victoria
Nuland said.
"We're focused on a policy objective on the ground
for the Palestinian people, for the people of Israel, which is to end up
with two states that can live peacefully next to each other," Nuland
said. "Nothing in this action at the U.N. is going to take the
Palestinians any closer to that. ... We think it makes other steps that
might improve the lives of Palestinians and Israelis harder."
Israel
says the U.N. request contradicts agreements with the Palestinians that
issues of statehood and sovereignty would be settled through
negotiations.
Israel has threatened to withhold tax revenue it
collects for the Palestinian Authority, while members of Congress have
threatened to cut aid payments to the Palestinian governing body.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said only negotiations with
Israel can bring about a Palestinian state.
Three Israeli prime
ministers have offered Palestinian negotiators a Palestinian state on
100% of Gaza and more than 90% of the West Bank with additional land
swaps from inside Israel to make up the difference.
Weinberg said
there's room for compromise, "but Israel's not going to fold under
international dictate coming through Palestinian maneuvers in the U.N.
where they have an automatic majority."
Many negotiations have
taken place since peace talks began with the Oslo accords in 1994 but
have not resulted in agreement. Abbas insisted that Israeli settlement
building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem cease before talks resumed.
Israel won't accept such preconditions.
Aaron David Miller, vice
president of the Woodrow Wilson Center and a former Middle East peace
negotiator for the State Department, said Abbas' bid at the United
Nations is "a non-consequential move by a weak player holding very weak
cards."
The U.N. status may allow the Palestinians to request
charges against Israeli actions in international bodies such as the
International Criminal Court. Even if Palestinians bring Israel before
U.N. legal bodies, the outcome of such efforts is uncertain because
Israel would bring countercharges against the Palestinians, Miller said.
Samir
Awad, a professor of political science at Birzeit University in the
West Bank, said the bid has a lot to do with the most recent conflict
between Hamas in Gaza and Israel. Hamas is a rival to Abbas' Fatah
Party, and its rocket attacks against Israel "made President Abbas look
weak," he said.
Awad said Abbas will go ahead in his U.N. bid in part to shore up his image.
"He's determined, and he's not caving in to threats from the West," Awad said.
In
the West Bank, where Abbas is the highest elected official,
Palestinians expressed hope that their president would succeed. But they
said the bid won't change things for them - and could make matters
worse.
"Israel won't make peace with us, and even [President]
Obama can't force Israel to give us sovereignty," said Amir Amir, 56, a
grocer. "If the United Nations doesn't establish a Palestinian state,
who will?"
The Palestinian Authority is in charge of all
governmental matters in the West Bank, but Israeli checkpoints prevent
residents from traveling to Israel and sometimes within the West Bank
itself. The security barrier Israel erected has prevented terrorists
from reaching Israel but restricts Palestinians' ability to travel even
to nearby Jerusalem to work, study or visit family.
Some residents
at the Aida refugee camp, pop. 5,000, in Bethlehem lost their homes in
what is now Israel during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.
The camp,
a maze of narrow streets, is partially encircled by the security wall
covered with demands for Palestinian freedom and depictions of
stone-throwing youths battling Israeli soldiers. Hanging out with some
of his school friends on a street corner, Ali Abu Sror, 17, said he
hopes Hamas, which fired hundreds of rockets into Israel last week,
won't try to undermine Abbas' diplomatic efforts.
"Hamas put
Israel on the defensive, but ultimately, we need a diplomatic solution
that brings peace," Sror said. "We want to live in peace, not in
perpetual war."
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