Carte blanche US backing to basic Israeli positions, even when its traditional allies are deserting it on the Palestinian question, occasions surprise
The landslide vote in the United Nations General Assembly in favour of upgrading the status of Palestine to that of a non-member observer “state” of the UN is an international rebuke of the policies of Israel and its principal backer, the United States, of a kind not seen before.
But neither appears to have taken lessons from the outcome of the UN voting last Thursday, although major European allies of the US and Israel supported the motion to upgrade the status of Palestine in the UN system from that of an “entity” earlier (and Palestinian “territory” even earlier). Even Britain and Germany could not stand four-square with Tel Aviv and Washington, and abstained. India stuck to its stand of strong support to the Palestinians.
The overarching sense of the vote is that it was epochal, in the same manner as the vote exactly 65 years earlier which approved the dividing of the British mandate of Palestine into the two states of Palestine and Israel. Israel regards that vote as the seal of international approval on the fact of its birth. But, regrettably, the direction of its policy since then has been to invade and occupy the areas marked for Palestine.
Along expected lines, angry with the fresh vote in the UN that issues a birth certificate to the Palestine state, Israel has denounced the event. More, only a day after the voting it moved to take steps to create Jewish settlements interposed between important West Bank Palestinian towns such as Ramallah and Bethlehem and Jerusalem (also a Palestinian town under the UN separation but one in which Israel has entrenched itself). This shows a clear lack of interest in pursuing peace negotiations with the Palestinians under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Even Washington was moved to criticise Israel’s brazen provocation.
Persistent Israeli recalcitrance, and Tel Aviv’s desire that the world stand up and applaud its invasions of Palestinian territories, occasions no surprise. But carte blanche US backing to basic Israeli positions, even when its traditional allies are deserting it on the Palestinian question, does. Now a bipartisan group of US senators has reportedly threatened to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas if Mr Abbas, using Palestine’s enhanced status, takes steps to urge the International Criminal Court to investigate Israeli crimes in occupied Palestinian areas. Last year the US Congress had stopped funding Unesco for having admitted Palestine as a member. With such a mindset in US political circles, can Washington play a part in bringing Israel to the negotiating table with the Palestinians? If
negotiations do not lead up to a two-state solution, West Asia would know no peace.
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