Palestinian leaders, determined to proclaim their state during the coming year, are readying an arsenal of diplomatic alternatives to negotiations with Israel, which are virtually frozen.
The change in course emerged after an October Arab League meeting in Libya, when president Mahmud Abbas laid the foundation stone for a Palestinian embassy in Brazil, the first of several Latin American states that recognised Palestinian statehood this month within the 1967 borders.
Those were the boundaries that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador have since followed Brazil, and Uruguay has said it will do likewise early in 2011.
Direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the first for nearly two years, began on September 2nd but stalled after a 10-month Israeli settlement-building freeze in the West Bank expired three weeks later and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu refused to renew it.
Since then, Abbas has been floating possible alternatives ranging from a current diplomatic offensive to radical options, such as suspending interim agreements with Israel. or even dissolving the self-rule Palestinian Authority.
Dismantling the Authority would potentially force Israel to take over the economic and political cost of governing the nearly 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and formally bury the peace process launched with the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Abbas could take the less drastic step of resigning as president with no clear successor but that is not seen as placing significant pressure on Netanyahu’s right-wing Israeli government.
The Palestinians’ strategy centres on a proclamation of statehood in September 2011.
That month marks the end of the 12 months set as a target for the talks launched in Washington and the completion of prime minister Salam Fayyad’s two-year plan for setting up the basic institutions of a state.
It is also when the United Nations holds its next General Assembly.
At the last session, Obama held out the prospect of Palestinian statehood by the time the UN convened again.
‘When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations – an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel,’ Obama said.
In November, Abbas said the president’s words amounted to a pledge in support of statehood.
‘We consider this statement to be a commitment by President Obama, not just a slogan, and we hope that next year he won’t say to us “we apologise, we can’t,” ’ Abbas said.
In the face of US opposition to a unilateral declaration, Palestinian diplomats are lobbying for widespread recognition of a state within the 1967 borders, recognised by the global community as Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
As and when such support reaches critical mass they are hoping to take their campaign to the UN Security Council.
Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki said in a recent interview: ‘At a certain point, broad international recognition of statehood will enable the Palestinian leadership to turn to the UNSC and request full membership of the UN.’
Should the Security Council gambit fail due to a veto by one of the permanent members: the United States, Russia, France, China and Britain, Palestinians argue that they could use a rule applied in the past that allows in such a case for the same request to be put to the General Assembly.
A draft resolution by the Palestinians and Arab states calling for Israel to halt all settlement activities is due to go before the Security Council shortly. It will show whether the United States is willing to use its veto in support of Israel, as it has often done in the past.
Israel is concerned over the Palestinian strategy and has reportedly ordered its own diplomats worldwide to mount a counter-offensive.
If the Palestinians lose this battle, they are considering calling for their territories to be placed under international administration.
That could be along the lines of the multinational effort in Kosovo or perhaps reviving the UN TrusteeShip Council that was set up to steer ‘non self-governing territories’ toward autonomy and independence.
It was suspended, but not abolished, in 1994 after the Pacific island of Palau attained UN membership.
Abbas reportedly cited the Palau example at a meeting with Arab ambassadors in Brazil ahead of Friday’s embassy dedication.
Abbas said in an interview that a peace agreement with Israel could be signed within two months if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has good intentions.
He said that what is needed is not negotiations, but decisions, and that east Jerusalem is occupied land where Palestinians want to establish their capital and this issue was not up for discussion.
He also said that the Palestinians do not plan to unilaterally declare statehood.
Meanwhile, PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said that a draft resolution condemning Israel’s settlement construction beyond the Green Line will be put to the UN Security Council in the coming days.
He said the Palestinian delegation to the UN approved a draft of the proposal to the UNSC, but officials in Ramallah estimate that the US will veto the proposal if it makes it to the Security Council.
Erekat also said Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is interested in ‘shaking off’ earlier agreements by asking to start negotiations from point zero, or by offering temporary solutions.
The PLO negotiator called on Netanyahu to commit to, and clearly declare, efforts to bring an end to the occupation.
Mahmud Abbas said his new attempt to get the United Nations to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank was specifically designed to win US support.
Speaking in Brazil on Thursday, Abbas said the Palestinian draft used the ‘same words’ as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has in criticising settlements.
He says he ‘doesn’t see why’ the US would veto the move.
The Palestinians have drafted a proposal and are lobbying for a Security Council resolution that would declare West Bank settlements illegal and an obstacle to ‘peace’.
The US has said it does not support the move.
Israel has said it is an attempt by the Palestinians to evade negotiations.
Abbas was in Brazil for the cornerstone-laying ceremony for a Palestinian embassy in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia, the first state-level Palestinian diplomatic mission in Latin America.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak came under fire from members of his Labour Party on Sunday, after it was reported that US officials felt he had ‘deceived’ them with assurances about the so-called peace process.
Senior advisers to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama feel that for more than a year and a half, Barak misled them about his persuasive powers with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the peace process.
