Analysis: Palestine at the UN, an alternative strategy

The Hill- Mouin Rabbani - As Israeli-Palestinian negotiations lurch from crisis to crisis, Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders have been suggesting they may go to the United Nations to seek resolutions confirming the illegality of Israel’s settlements in the occupied territories and recognizing a reality of Palestinian statehood.

With Washington now offering Israel unprecedented blandishments to observe a partial and temporary suspension of settlement activity rather than the comprehensive one set forth as early as the 2003 Roadmap, and which senior Palestinians have characterized as more dangerous than continued settlement activity, both propositions are worth serious examination, not least because they would challenge the existing framework of bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under American supervision. Instead of an interminable process which has effectively transformed the West Bank and Gaza Strip from occupied into disputed territories, and in which Israeli claims are considered as at least as valid as Palestinian rights, the alternatives being discussed could lay the foundation for a genuinely international effort whose point of departure is the implementation of decolonization on the basis of relevant provisions of international law and UN resolutions. Read more