Protesters gather outside the UN building in Ramallah
In a meeting last week between Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and political party representatives from Tunisia’s new constituent assembly, President Abbas reportedly revealed that the PLO would not seek a UN General Assembly vote to upgrade Palestine’s UN observer status. A source attending the meeting, who requested to remain anonymous, also confirmed that Abbas emphasized that the PLO would accept nothing less than UN membership. In light of this goal, the PLO would continue its efforts for as long as necessary to secure the ninth vote in the UN Security Council required to achieve full UN membership.
One day after the president’s meeting in Tunis, the Associated Press published this headline: “Palestine seeks upgraded observer status in UN, officials say.”
Yet, on 15 November, Reuters confirmed the original report that the PLO had indeed “backed Abbas’s decision not to go to the General Assembly at this stage, while keeping all options open,” Reuters’ Ramallah correspondent, Ali Sawafta, wrote.
To confuse matters further, in a phone conversation with Rabii Al-Hantouli, a diplomat with the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the UN, I was told on 15 November that no decision had been made on the matter.
As appallingly apparent in this case, both the PLO and the international media are failing to communicate to interested world citizens what to expect next in terms of the Palestinian bid for UN membership.
When taking stock of all that is happening on this issue, it would appear that Al-Hantouli’s comment that a decision had not yet been made is the most likely of the three scenarios, not only on account of his authority, but also because the PLO has run into a major snag in its quest for the support of at least nine Security Council members, and PLO decision makers are probably discussing what do to next.
The snag, of course, is that the PLO doesn’t have the support it needs to gain full membership status. The good news is that the configuration of the Security Council will change after the New Year, when five of the 10 non-permanent members will finish their two-year terms. One of these five, Bosnia and Herzegovina, signaled that they would abstain from the vote if it came to fruition during their term. The bad news is that the remaining four of these states had planned to support PLO membership in the UN. Consequently, the PLO will either have to persuade one of the abstaining countries to change its position before the end of the year, or chance that the five incoming members will be partial to its point of view.
What is perplexing is the PLO’s determination to pursue a vote on its membership in the UN when the US, a permanent Security Council member, has said that it will use its veto to prevent the PLO from achieving its goal. Many of us are under the impression that the reasoning behind this is that the PLO is keen to expose America’s blind support of Israel along with its insincerity in brokering a fair deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. It is hard to believe, however, that the PLO would expend so much political capital and financial resources, and jeopardize US aid to the Palestinian Authority, only to “expose” something that is well-known to the global public and the international community, which is anyway too compromised by the US to act on its own accord, and even in its own interests it can be argued.
All of this made more sense when it was understood that the PLO would go to the General Assembly once the world witnessed yet another US veto on behalf of Israel in the Security Council, however, the (questionable) news that it will postpone or drop its quest for an upgrade in its UN observer status is also perplexing. An all or nothing approach ignores the significant gains that could be made if the PLO won support in the General Assembly, namely, to join UN organizations and sign international treaties, such as the International Criminal Court. Considering the likelihood that the PLO could secure a victory in the General Assembly, why wouldn’t it make an appeal?
So much confusion and uncertainty suggest that something behind the scenes is happening that we are not aware of. Either the PLO has reason to believe that the US can be persuaded to change its position over the well-founded fear of losing its influence in the Middle East; or the PLO is bowing to severe pressure from the US to abandon the vote in the General Assembly. To divert attention from this fact, the PLO is throwing its weight behind a pursuit that will ultimately fail. This latter scenario is more likely and is, therefore, a testament to the futility of Palestinian dreams for statehood as long as the US is king.
