[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: Notice one thing missing? Yes - the possibility
that we have to weigh the existential danger of a sovereign Palestinian
state against the need to placate USA. Take another step: can a happy USA
actually protect us from the consequences of the existential danger of a
Palestinian state?]
The Palestinian Bid at the Security Council: International and Domestic
Ramifications for Israel
INSS Insight No. 645, December 22, 2014
Shimon Stein, Shlomo Brom .
http://www.inss.org.il/index.aspx?id=4538&articleid=8403

SUMMARY: The decision by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to
seek a UN Security Council resolution that would recognize a Palestinian
state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and would
require Israel’s withdrawal from the territories by the end of 2017 has
forced many countries, in the Middle East and around the world, to revisit
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and restore the issue yet again to the
front burner. This development has inevitably also placed the political
process with the Palestinians and Israeli-US relations over this issue at
the top of Israel’s public agenda, resulting in the Israeli-Palestinian
political process becoming a hotly contested topic in the Israeli national
election, slated for March 17, 2015.

The decision by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to seek a UN
Security Council resolution that would recognize a Palestinian state within
the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and would require
Israel’s withdrawal from the territories by the end of 2017 has forced many
countries, in the Middle East and around the world, to revisit the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and restore the issue yet again to the front
burner. This development has inevitably also placed the political process
with the Palestinians and Israeli-US relations over this issue at the top of
Israel’s public agenda, resulting in the Israeli-Palestinian political
process becoming a hotly contested topic in the Israeli national election
slated, for March 17, 2015.

The PLO’s decision to turn to the Security Council is the result of a
combination of factors: the ongoing deadlock in the political process, the
failure of the last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks spearheaded by US
Secretary of State John Kerry, and the sense (widespread among the
Palestinians long before the declaration of early elections in Israel) that
a political breakthrough is not on the horizon and that the Israeli
government is not amenable to an agreement. At the same time, this is an
attempt on Abbas’ part to take advantage of the escalating tensions and
violence between Israel and the Palestinians (while hoping that events do
not spiral out of control and ignite an all-out conflagration) to promote a
strategy designed to generate international recognition of a Palestinian
state and impose a solution on Israel without direct negotiations. In
addition, the Palestinian move in the Security Council is meant to challenge
the United States, and in particular to test its tradition of vetoing
resolutions relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The tense atmosphere between Israel and the Palestinians is exacerbated by
recent events on the Temple Mount. Given the lack of response by the Israeli
government to activities by right wing politicians at the site, these events
are seen as a reflection of Israel’s intention to undermine the longstanding
status quo there. Moreover, the focus on Jerusalem has pushed Jordan, which
views itself as the keeper of the site, to take several countermeasures,
including the recall of its ambassador to Israel for consultations, an
emergency summit meeting in Amman to discuss developments, and use of its
status as a member of the Security Council to back the Palestinian
diplomatic bid at the UN.

The Israeli government has reacted to the Palestinian move at the Security
Council with intensive diplomatic efforts to foil the bid, mostly by trying
to persuade the US administration to veto the Palestinian resolution and any
other version proposed in the Security Council. As part of these efforts,
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Rome for a special emergency
meeting with John Kerry. The meeting was not followed by any public
announcement, and thus the outcome of the meeting is still unknown.

To help extricate the United States from its dilemma, France, Great Britain,
and Germany are working on a resolution that would allow Washington to avoid
using its veto power. The proposal presumably focuses on the principles for
resolving the conflict in the same spirit that Secretary of State Kerry used
to try to elicit an agreement when he mediated the last round of talks
between Israel and the Palestinians. It would set a two-year timetable for
concluding the talks on a permanent settlement of the conflict. Indeed, the
European initiative is in line with the current atmosphere in Europe that
has prompted a wave of decisions recognizing the Palestinian state by
several governments and parliaments.

Even if at this point it remains unclear how the Palestinian diplomatic
effort will end and what its practical ramifications might be, the
implications of these developments are not insignificant.

Netanyahu’s decision to dissolve the government and head for new elections
places the US administration in a bind regarding the potential impact of its
decision about the resolution on the Israeli election campaign. Media
reports indicate disagreement within the administration. Some support
casting a veto so as not to provide Netanyahu and the Israeli political
right with a reason to rally under the banner of “the whole world is against
us” and draw the electorate more rightwards. Others are less worried about
the effect that withholding the veto would have on Israeli voting trends,
provided the resolution is one that the United States could live with. In
their minds, the United States should work with the leading European nations
on formulating the resolution. Kerry himself told reporters at the State
Department that the United States would not have “any problem with [the
Palestinians] filing some resolution, providing it’s done in the spirit of
working with people to see how we could proceed forward in a thoughtful way
that solves the problem [and] doesn’t make it worse.”

The issue of US interference in Israeli national elections is not new. This
time, though, the issue takes on a special twist given the difficult
relationship between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu.
(Presumably the White House remembers Netanyahu’s support for Republican
candidate Mitt Romney when Obama ran for reelection in 2012.) Regardless of
administration considerations, a US refusal to veto a resolution formulated
through dialogue between the United States and the European nations could
have a positive effect on the Israeli election campaign, as this would force
the respective Israeli political parties and the public in general to face
the implications of a Security Council resolution that determines the
parameters for discussing a final resolution. This would be very different
from the previous election, which focused on social and economic issues and
allowed the political parties and the electorate to avoid facing the
critical issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations.

In the context of the public debate before the election, the issue of
Israeli-US relations is also of fundamental importance. The public will have
to decide between two diametrically opposed worldviews: one that sees the
relationship between the two nations as a key component of Israel’s
strategic strength and deterrence, and that holds that the leader who
damages these relations must be punished (which is what happened to Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who was beaten by Yitzhak Rabin in the 1992
election), and one that sees Israel as “a nation that dwells alone” and
maintains that friction with other nations simply reflects inherent, generic
anti-Semitism. The proponents of the second view will support a political
leader who promises to resist international pressure and the intention by
the nations of the world to impose on Israel any policies and moves they
view as inimical.

If the election results in a coalition government interested in genuine
negotiations with the Palestinians, it can make use of the Security Council
resolution and begin discussion of the core issues of the conflict while
relying on the progress made in previous rounds of talks. This would be a
stark departure from previous tradition, whereby any new Israeli government
started talks from scratch. This resulted in Israeli governments having to
decide on essential issues only at the ends of their terms, each time
calling into question their ability to realize the agreements they had made
and meet their commitments.