Jack Cohen- These days we are facing the Palestine gambit, the attempt by the Palestinian movement to achieve statehood unilaterally, without reference to Israel, and to do so within a short time-span. The Palestine Authority (PA), whose Government is actually illegal, since they have not had elections since 2009, is submitting a resolution to the UN Security Council through the delegation of Jordan, that is a member of the SC.
Jack Cohen
France has also prepared a resolution to submit to the SC, and apparently a compromise resolution of the two has been arrived at that will be submitted officially to the SC soon.
According to reports the French version included mutual recognition of Israel as the Jewish State as well as Palestine, but the Palestinians vetoed this. The resolution gives a two-year limit for Israel to withdraw from all territories that it captured in 1967 and turn them over to the Palestine State, without any input by Israel. Furthermore there is no indication as to what government will rule in this Palestinian State, it could be Fatah (as in the PA now), it could be Hamas, or some combination of the two. But, Israel cannot and will not acquiese in such a dictate. It would be impossible for Israel to cooperate in a process in which it has not been consulted. Israel Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz has called this resolution “a declaration of war against Israel by the Palestinians.”
Such a unilateral action would be against all previous UN resolutions, that are binding, that require negotiations between the two sides to resolve the many difficult issues. For this reason it is expected that if the resolution comes to the floor of the SC the US will veto it. The Palestinians have been trying to obtain the votes of what they consider a majority of the SC members, namely 9, even if the US vetoes the resolution, but it is not clear that they will be able to accomplish this.
All the resolutions passed in the European Parliaments (Sweden, UK, Ireland, France, Spain, etc.) in favor of a Palestinian State and the current reversal by the European Court of Hamas being a registered terrorist organization and the resolution in the EU Parliament requiring a two-state solution, are all related to the Palestine gambit. PM Netanyahu has called these votes “a wave of appeasement blowing through Europe.” So far all these actions have amounted to nothing more than window-dressing for the main action at the UN SC.
If the Palestinians continue with this approach, Israel will be released from its obligations to accept the PA under the Oslo Accords. It is likely that these Palestinian actions will drive Israeli opinion to the right and will result in the election of a more right-wing Government in Israel, that could also take unilateral actions, such as annexing the territories. The Palestinians will only have themselves to blame if this happens, for never having been willing to recognize Israel for what it is and to deal with it.
