The Final Countdown
A Punitive Congressional Approach
A Growing Consensus?
On the Ground: Bedouins Forcibly Relocated
"Separated" vs. "Free Of"
Another Price Tag
The Final Countdown
Next week’s scenario for the Palestinian initiative at the UN is still unfolding, as uncertainty still surrounds both the timing and context of the Palestinian appeal. In a speech on Friday in Ramallah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that they will make their request for full membership in the UN to the Security Council. However, other leading Palestinian diplomats suggest that the final decision for how Palestinians will make their approach has not yet been made. Either way, all signs are pointing to a showdown.
In a change of plans, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be traveling to New York to address the General Assembly late next week, after President Abbas is scheduled do give a speech asking the international community to support a Palestinian state. Netanyahu told Czech press, “The General Assembly is not a place where Israel usually receives a fair hearing, but I have nonetheless decided to tell the truth to anyone who wants to hear the truth.”
Last-ditch efforts to stop the bid continue in the final days and hours before expected action. U.S. envoys David Hale and Dennis Ross are still in the Middle East trying to find the right formula to dissuade Palestinian leadership from pursuing the UN route. The EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair have also been in the region in recent days.
On Friday, Ha’aretz reported, “One of Netanyahu's advisers also said that Israel would not object to the PA's status being upgraded as long as it is not recognized as a state.” The most likely outcome for Palestinians is that they will receive an upgrade in status from an observer entity to a non-member state observer through a vote in the General Assembly. Ashton pitched Netanyahu’s proposal to the Palestinians, who rejected it because it didn’t get them recognition as a state.
Riad Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister said that in order to abandon the bid, Palestinians would need a “firm base with clear terms of reference, a clear timetable and with a clear end game.” The foreign minister also told journalists, “We will see if anyone carries with him or her any credible offer that will allow us to look into it seriously and to be discussed in the Palestinian leadership. Otherwise, on the 23rd at 12:30, the president will submit the application.” The timeline for the application’s submission vary across press reports.
Commentary on Palestinian efforts at the UN has reached a fever pitch and many analysts are speculating about the ramifications of such a move. Several high profile experts took to The New York Times “Room for Debate” page to discuss if Israel can survive without a Palestinian state. University professors Shibley Telhami and Joshua S. Goldstein posit that the UN is indeed an appropriate forum for the Palestinian statehood question, asking, “What if the United States preempted a U.N. General Assembly resolution with a Security Council resolution endorsing a two-state solution?” Ha’aretz writer Gideon Levy came to the conclusion that, “Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period.” He writes, “The truth is that the Palestinians have just three options, not four: to surrender unconditionally and go on living under Israeli occupation for another 42 years at least; to launch a third intifada; or to mobilize the world on their behalf. They picked the third option, the lesser of all evils even from Israel's perspective.”
Next week we will keep you informed of the action from New York, which is guaranteed to be interesting. Pay attention to our Facebook page for up-to-date news and check out our resource page for additional background on the Palestinian UN bid.
A Punitive Congressional Approach
Congress is also looking to find ways to prevent the Palestinians from going forward with their efforts in the United Nations, or punish them for doing so. On Wednesday, there was a hearing for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL18), called “Promoting Peace? Reexamining U.S. Aid to the Palestinian Authority.”
The congresswoman opened the hearing by saying, “Despite decades of assistance totaling billions of dollars, if a Palestinian State were declared today, it would be neither democratic nor peaceful nor willing to negotiate with Israel.” Earlier this month, Rep. Ros-Lehtinen proposed UN reform legislation that would cut off funding to any UN agency that supports the Palestinians UN aspirations.
Some witnesses expressed concern that cutting off funding to the Palestinian Authority would be detrimental to United States, and Israel’s interests. Elliott Abrams, who served as President George W. Bush's deputy national security adviser for Middle East affairs, told the panel a better punitive measure would be to close the PLO office in Washington. David Makovsky of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy said that ending assistance could embolden Hamas. "Congressional aid has produced unprecedented levels of West Bank stability, prosperity, improved governance and previously unimaginable levels of Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation that have benefited Palestinians and Israelis alike. Any changes to U.S. aid should therefore be carefully calibrated," he said.
Another effort to cut off Palestinian aid comes from Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY02), who introduced legislation “to prohibit Foreign Military Financing program assistance to countries that vote in the United Nations General Assembly in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state in the absence of a negotiated border agreement between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”
Rep. Israel’s spokesperson told Washington Jewish Week, “We won't allow other countr[ies] to vote against our best friend with one hand in the UN and come to Congress to seek taxpayer dollars with the other hand.”
Write your Representative today!Join with CMEP supporters across the country to let Congress know that you support continued U.S. aid to Palestinians because it is laying the groundwork for future peace.
A Growing Consensus?
Representing the broad spectrum of organizations that are coming out against congressional plans to halt Palestinian aid, two pro-Israel groups came out against cutting off security aid to Palestinians. The right-wing Israel Project and left-leaning J Street both say that ending the aid would be harmful to Israel’s security.
"We have made the case that the security cooperation, which is largely funded and supported by America, needs to continue if we want to see the progress ... in reducing terrorism continue," The Israel Project's president, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, told Reuters.
"We must make clear to American politicians, particularly in Congress, that being pro-Israel does not require cutting aid to the Palestinian Authority in retaliation for approaching the UN. Such a move will hurt Israel's interests by undermining moderate Palestinian leadership and defunding productive security cooperation," J Street announced.
Some in Congress also seem to recognize the danger in ending aid. Republican Senator from Arizona John McCain said he would not favor a "blanket" aid cut-off. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he would be "very, very skeptical" of cutting aid.
Even the Israeli government says that it doesn’t want an end to international economic aid to Palestinians. A recently-released government report says, “Israel calls for ongoing international support for the PA budget and development projects that will contribute to the growth of a vibrant private sector, which will provide the PA an expanded base for generating internal revenue.”
On the Ground: Bedouins Forcibly Relocated
Approximately 2,400 Bedouins will likely be forcibly removed from Area C, where they have lived for decades, to permanent locations beginning in January, 2012. According to a report from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, this will make it easier for Israel to expand the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and other settlements around Jerusalem.
The Israeli cabinet also approved a plan to relocate up to 30,000 Palestinian Bedouins from the Negev Desert into state settlements to “solve” the problem of unrecognized villages. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel denounced the plan, saying, “Approval of the plan allows for the government’s continued discrimination of and disregard for one of the most disenfranchised communities in Israel, during a period in which a mass protest movement in Israel has been calling on the government to instill policies that provide equal rights to all citizens.”
"Separated" vs. "Free Of"
Controversy arose this week around comments made by PLO Ambassador to the United States Maen Areikat. In a breakfast briefing sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor Areikat said, “After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated.” Press reports interpreted the ambassador’s comments as saying that that a future Palestinian state should be free of Jews.
But Areikat has said that this is not at all what he was saying. He told the Huffington Post, “Under no circumstances was I saying that no Jews can be in Palestine. What a statement that would be for me to make! I never said that, and I never meant to say such a thing. This is not a religious conflict, and we want to establish a secular state.” Foreign Policy’s The Cable provides more context to the controversy, with Areikat saying, “It's not a misquotation or out of context, it's a total fabrication. I never mentioned the word ‘Jews,' I never said that Palestine has to be free of Jews.”
The ambassador is not unique in calling for separation. In June, CMEP reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “It does not matter to me whether there are half a million more Palestinians or less because I have no wish to annex them into Israel. I want to separate from them so that they will not be Israeli citizens.”
Another Price Tag
A Peace Now activist is the latest victim of the “price tag” acts Israeli settlers are exacting in retaliation for the Israeli government’s demolitions of some illegal outposts in the West Bank. The activist, who wished to remain anonymous, discovered graffiti in front of her Jerusalem apartment. The vandals wrote, “Peace Now, the end is near,” and “Migron forever,” referencing the government’s demolition of some structures in the Migron outpost last week.
In response, Peace Now said: "The incidents make it necessary to take strong steps against what appears to be a new Jewish underground."
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