New York: Despite US and Israeli opposition, Palestinians asked the U.N. Friday to accept them as a member state, sidestepping nearly two decades of troubled negotiations in the hope this dramatic move on the world stage would re-energize their quest for an independent homeland.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was greeted by sustained applause and appreciative whistles as he approached the dais in the General Assembly hall to deliver a speech outlining his people’s hopes and dreams of becoming a full member of the United Nations. Some members of the Israeli delegation, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Liebermann, left the hall as Mr. Abbas approached the podium.
Negotiations with Israel “will be meaningless” as long as it continues building on lands the Palestinians claim for that state, he declared, warning that his government could collapse if the construction persists.
“This policy is responsible for the continued failure of the successive international attempts to salvage the peace process,” said Mr. Abbas, who has refused to negotiate until the construction stops. “This settlement policy threatens to also undermine the structure of the Palestinian National Authority and even end its existence.”
To another round of applause, he held up a copy of the formal membership application and said he had asked U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to expedite deliberation of his request to have the United Nations recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered in cities across the West Bank to celebrate the move and watch Mr Abbas’s speech on large television screens set up in central squares for the occasion.
They were the largest public gatherings since Yasser Arafat’s funeral in 2004. There were no rallies in Gaza, where the militant group Hamas is in control and opposed Mr. Abbas’s U.N. initiative.
In the West Bank, the mood was jubilant as crowds made up of whole families gathered hours before the speech to sing,dance, chant slogans and wave Palestinian flags.
Among the many posters and banners, a few criticized President Obama, whose speech on Wednesday and opposition to the statehood bid deeply disappointed Palestinians.
In Ramallah, seat of Mr. Abbas’s government, the crowd filled Arafat square and lined the rooftops surrounding it. It erupted in cheers and flag waving when Mr Abbas asked the UN to accept his application for observer state status.
The gatherings were overwhelming peaceful, but the Palestinian security and police forces mobilized all 29,000 officers to prevent violence and clashes with the Israeli military.
Israel itself mobilized more than 20,000 riot police and security officials. Major checkpoints were manned with thousands of soldiers in riot gear, and there were between youths throwing rocks and Israeli soldiers at some checkpoints.
Mr. Abbas’ appeal to the U.N. to recognize an independent Palestine would not deliver any immediate changes on the ground: Israel would remain an occupying force in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and continue to severely restrict access to Gaza, ruled by Palestinian Hamas militants.
Beyond that, Security Council action on the membership request could take weeks or months.
The strategy also put the Palestinians in direct confrontation with the U.S., which has threatened to veto their membership bid in the Council, reasoning, like Israel, that statehood can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties to end the long and bloody conflict.
Also hanging heavy in the air was the threat of renewed violence over frustrated Palestinian aspirations, in spite of Mr. Abbas’ vow — perceived by Israeli security officials as genuine — to prevent Palestinian violence. The death on Friday of 35-year-old Issam Badram, in gunfire that erupted after rampaging Jewish settlers destroyed trees in a Palestinian grove, was the type of incident that both Palestinians and Israelis had feared would spark widespread violence.
Yet by seeking approval at a world forum overwhelmingly sympathetic to their quest, Palestinians hope to make it harder for Israel to resist already heavy global pressure to negotiate the borders of a future Palestine based on lines Israel held before capturing the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza in 1967.
In recent weeks, international mediators have been furiously trying to piece together a formula that would let the Palestinians abandon their plan to ask the Security Council for full U.N. membership, and instead make do with asking a sympathetic General Assembly to elevate their status from permanent observer to nonmember observer state. The other part of that formula would include the resumption of negotiations in short order.
The U.S. and Israel have been pressuring Council members to either vote against the plan or abstain when it comes up for a vote. The vote would require the support of nine of the Council’s 15 members to pass, but even if the Palestinians could line up that backing, a U.S. veto is assured.
The resumption of talks seems an elusive goal, with both sides digging in to positions that have tripped up negotiations for years. Israel insists that negotiations go ahead without any preconditions. But Palestinians say they will not return to the bargaining table without assurances that Israel would halt settlement building and drop its opposition to basing negotiations on the borders it held before capturing the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza in 1967.
Israel has warned that the Palestinian appeal to the U.N. will have a disastrous effect on negotiations, which have been the cornerstone of international Mideast policy for the past two decades.
Mr. Netanyahu opposes negotiations based on 1967 lines, saying a return to those frontiers would expose Israel’s heartland to rocket fire from the West Bank.
He also fears that if that principle becomes the baseline for negotiations, then Palestinians won’t settle for anything less, despite previous understandings between the Palestinians and previous Israeli governments to swap land where settlement blocs stand for Israeli territory.
Talks for all intents and purposes broke down nearly three years ago after Israel went to war in the Gaza Strip and prepared to hold national elections that ultimately propelled Mr. Netanyahu to power for a second time. A last round was launched a year ago, with the ambitious aim of producing a framework accord for a peace deal, but broke down just three weeks later after an Israeli settlement construction slowdown expired.
Quartet envoy Tony Blair cautioned that the move at the U.N. must be followed by negotiations.
“You can pass whatever resolution you like at the United Nations, or at the Security Council, and it doesn’t actually deliver you a state,” Mr. Blair told BBC Radio. “And if you don’t have a negotiation, whatever you do at the U.N. is going to be deeply confrontational.”
The U.N. recognition bid has won Mr. Abbas broad popular support at home, but it is opposed by his main political rival, the Islamic militant Hamas movement that violently wrested control of Gaza in 2007.
Gaza’s Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, accused Mr. Abbas on Friday of relinquishing Palestinian rights by seeking recognition for a state in the pre-1967 borders. Hamas’ founding charter calls for the destruction of Israel and a state in all of the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, though some Hamas officials have suggested they would support a peace deal based on the 1967 lines.
“The Palestinian people do not beg the world for a state, and the state can’t be created through decisions and initiatives,” Mr. Haniyeh said. “States liberate their land first and then the political body can be established.”
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