Guardian editorial
Obama is not taking the burden of the Israel-Palestine conflict on his shoulders. He is passing it on to othersLast year in his annual address to the general assembly, Barack Obama promised that this time it would be different. When they came back in a year, they could have an agreement that would lead to a new member of the United Nations – an independent, sovereign state of Palestine. Mahmoud Abbas yesterday took him at his word by handing in his letter requesting statehood. Obama has not only said he would veto it, and pressured others into vetoing it. In this year's annual address, he placed himself not as the agent for change, but the champion of the status quo. The Arab spring was a good thing, he seemed to be saying, but Israel-Palestine is where it stops.
Before Mr Abbas uttered a word at the podium, a Palestinian man had been shot dead in a clash with soldiers and armed settlers in the village of Qusra. This is the scene of repeated incursions by settlers, who in recent weeks attacked the mosque with burning tyres and defaced the walls with Hebrew graffiti. This is the status quo in Qusra and many other parts of the West Bank. But make no mistake, in standing foursquare behind Israel's vision of itself as a perpetual victim, a small nation surrounded by larger ones threatening to wipe it off the map, Mr Obama exposed the partisanship into which his administration has slumped. He is not taking the burden of this conflict on his shoulders. He is passing it on to others.
In his speech, Mr Abbas at least deserves credit for sticking to his guns. In framing the Palestinian struggle against occupation in the context of the Arab spring – he called for a Palestinian spring – and in reaffirming the Palestinian right to peaceful popular resistance, to unity with other Palestinian factions, and in insisting that settlement construction had to stop, Mr Abbas showed his refusal to bow to the pressure to which he had been subjected. But he has done little more. What follows is a protracted game of chicken between Mr Abbas and Mr Obama. The former will tempt the latter to cast his veto. The latter will tempt the former to walk away from negotiations, which provide the president of the Palestinian Authority with his only reason for staying in his job. If Israel threatens to cut the funds, the Palestinian Authority could resign en bloc, and tell Israel to take over the whole lot.
This game could be dragged out for weeks, and Mr Abbas will be in no hurry to take his case to the general assembly, where – unlike in the security council – he is assured of a majority. An optimist would say that this will keep up the pressure to break the deadlock. The splits among the five European members of the 15-member security council – with Germany against recognition, France for, and Britain sitting on the fence – are significant, and it is by no means assured that Israel will continue to depend, as it has done in the past, on the solid support of the Quartet. In their hearts none of the security council members would disagree with Bill Clinton's assessment that Binyamin Netanyahu is responsible for the inability to come to a peace deal. He is right to say that they now had the two things they always claimed they needed: a partner for peace, Abbas, and Arab states, lined up by Saudi Arabia, ready not only to recognise Israel but to trade with it. Yet as soon as these basic demands came into reach, Netanyahu lost interest.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/23/palestine-state-chicken
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