Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, center, and the delegation celebrate after the United Nations General Assembly voted to approve a resolution to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority to a non-member observer state Thursday.(Photo: Stan Honda, AFP/Getty Images)
Palestinians on Friday celebrated their new status as a symbolic
state following a United Nations but they won't have a real state until
they agree with Israel on thorny issues the two have tangled over for
decades, analysts say.
The vote is historic because it allows
Palestinians to use the word "state" in their title at the U.N., , says
Marina Ottaway, director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. But, she said, it does not solve
issues like the status of Jerusalem, the details of borders and
security, mutual recognition and refugee claims.
"I don't think it moves the process any closer to negotiations," Ottaway said.
The
U.N. General Assembly voted 138-9 with 41 abstentions to grant
Palestine non-member state status, a move that Israel and the USA warned
would make peace more difficult.
Palestinians in the West Bank
erupted in cheers, hugging each other and honking car horns. In the West
Bank city of Ramallah, hundreds crowding into the main square waved
Palestinian flags and chanted "God is great."
"It's a great
feeling to have a state, even if in name only," said civil servant
Mohammed Srour, 28, standing in a flag-waving a crowd of more than 2,000
packed into a square in the West Bank city of Ramallah late Thursday.
The
vote held on the 65th anniversary of the birth of modern Israel when
the UN voted to partition the region into one Jewish state and one Arab
state. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas told General Assembly
delegates before the vote that it would "breathe new life into the
negotiation process."
Abbas said he "did not come here to
de-legitimize a state established years ago, that is Israel." Then
lashed out at Israel, blaming it for a lack of peace in the region and
alleging it conducted "ethnic cleansing" in Gaza in its air campaign
against rocket fire aimed it Israeli cities and towns.
Abbas'
remarks and the final vote were met with loud applause in the General
Assembly. The vote effectively recognizes Palestine as a state but it
will not be a UN member. Membership is granted by the Security Council,
where the USA, which opposed the move but failed to stop it, has veto
power.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Abbas
speech "defamatory and venomous," saying it was "full of mendacious
propaganda" against Israel and showed that the Palestinians are not
really interested in having a peaceful state alongside Israel.
"No
Palestinian state will exist without a declaration of an end to
hostilities, and no Palestinian state will exist without real security
arrangements that will protect the State of Israel and its citizens.
None of these things are remotely mentioned in the Palestinian petition
to the U.N," Netanyahu said.
Israel just completed a military
operation in Gaza against Hamas, the Palestinian faction and
U.S.-designated terror group that fired hundreds of rockets at Israel
earlier this month until Israel launched air strikes to stop them. The
two sides called a cease-fire last week.
"There is only one way
peace can be achieved," he continued. "Through direct negotiation
between the sides without preconditions," he said.
Though the vote
does not give the Palestinian Authority UN membership it may allow it
to file suits against Israel in the International Criminal Court, and
allow Israel to do the same against the Palestinian Authority.
However,
Abbas said Palestinians will accept nothing less than an independent
state with east Jerusalem as its capital on all territories occupied by
Israel in a 1967 war, and a settlement to the issue of millions of
Palestinian descendants who have refugee status. Israel's position is
Jerusalem will always remain its undivided capital and that refugees
cannot return to Israel.
The United States, which voted against
the resolution, immediately criticized the vote. The USA and Israel have
said that the vote will make the Palestinians less likely to compromise
on difficult choices and make it harder for the two sides to create a
lasting peace.
"Today's unfortunate and counterproductive
resolution places further obstacles in the path peace," U.N. Ambassador
Susan Rice said. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called
the vote "unfortunate" and "counterproductive."
Vuk Jeremic,
president of the General Assembly acknowledged the historical nature of
the vote and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders "to work for
peace, negotiate in good faith and succeed." Until Thursday, the
Palestinian Authority has the status of U.N. observer.
Ahead of
the vote, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch filed an amendment to a defense
bill that would eliminate funding for the United Nations if the General
Assembly changes Palestine's status.
"Increasing the Palestinians'
role in the United Nations is absolutely the wrong approach, especially
in light of recent military developments in the Middle East," he said
in a statement. "Israel is one of America's closest allies, and any
movement to strengthen one of its fiercest enemies must not be
tolerated."
The Palestinian effort is a rejection of US-mediated
peace talks, says Yousef Munayyer, executive director of The Palestine
Center, a pro-Palestinian think-tank in Washington. They're meant to
create leverage for Palestinians to impose costs on the Israelis for the
occupation, Munayyer says.
"This is an alternative strategy to
seek membership in other international forums after Obama failed to get
Israel to agree to a settlement freeze" in 2010, Munayyer said.
The
Palestinians have different strategies for making the occupation costly
for Israel, Munayyer said. Hamas, the U.S. designated terror group that
rules the Palestinian territory of Gaza, believes only force will
achieve Israeli concessions, while Abbas' Fatah party and Palestinian
Liberation Organization believe in using international courts and
organizations.
"Unless Israel has costs related to the occupation, it's not going to change," he says.
The
U.N. vote should be "a springboard" to a process that results in better
relations between Ramallah and Washington, says Hussein Ibish, a senior
fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, which advocates for a
negotiated two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and
Palestinians. Better Palestinian-US relations would be the first step to
getting back to negotiations with Israel, Ibish says.
Ibish said
he believes many European countries that Israel and the USA thought
would abstain or oppose the measure decided to vote in favor or abstain
because Palestinian leaders signaled "they can be restrained in using
those options."
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