138 Nations in UN General Assembly Approves Palestine's Admission As An Observer State

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/world/middleeast/Palestinian-Authority-United-Nations-Israel.html?pagewanted=all


All,

Despite the fiercely reactionary and ruthless imperialist opposition of the United States and Israel to the legitimate demands of the Palestinian people for true self determination and national sovereignty the essential struggle for freedom, truth, and justice asserts itself in the global community known as the United Nations and dig this: No matter how long it takes or how many oppressive enemies and lying detractors it and the Palestinian people's inspiring fight for national independence, global recognition and genuine support encounters these fundamental facts and all they represent and embody in the quest for real freedom, equality, and justice ANYWHERE in the world (including the United States and Israel!) will continue to be courageously expressed and supported.  YES!

Kofi

P.S.  View the following previous pieces from the Panopticon Review on the ongoing Palestinian struggle and the United Nations taken from the PR archive below.  Please click on the following links:

http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2011/09/palestinians-fight-for-un-recognition.html

http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2011/09/bypassing-united-states-and-israel.html

 
http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2011/09/as-palestinians-fight-for-national.html

http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2011/09/palestinians-hold-firm-in-their-quest.html

http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2011/09/palestinians-remain-steadfast-in.html

http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2008/08/mahmoud-darwish-great-poet-and-activist.html
 
http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2011/09/palestinians-seek-united-nations-vote.html

http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2011/07/alice-walker-stands-up-in-support-of.html

http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2010/08/current-national-crisis-and-ongoing.html

"I wanted to say a few concluding words on Palestine, because it’s an issue that matters intensely to us. It’s clear that the fate of Palestine matters very little to the ruling class except as it may relate to incorporating Arab regimes into the anti-Iran coalition. We can see here an example of true bipartisanship at its most destructive – on condemning the Goldstone Report, on the starvation of Gaza and authorizing the Egyptian regime’s blockage of the Gaza Freedom March.

Whether the Obama administration’s early, feeble attempts to stop Israeli settlement construction and demolition of Palestinian homes were intended seriously is not clear, but it no longer matters – it is now too weakened at home to exert real pressure on Israel even if it wanted to. The policy on Palestine now is simply the Iron Fist, made worse by the cynical cover of meaningless rhetoric about “renewing the peace process.” Nothing of substance will change until Israel’s status as an imperial asset is degraded by international isolation. This is why the BDS (“boycott/divestment/sanctions”) campaign in all its diversity, internationally and here, is now so important as a focus for Palestine solidarity activism."

--David Finkel,   "One Year of Obama and the Democrats’ Debacle"  --Speech delivered to the Solidarity National Committee  (February 2011)

The Panopticon Review,  August 9, 2011

Damon Winter/The New York Times
The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, center, was congratulated by Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu

U.N. Assembly, in Blow to U.S.,  Elevates Status of Palestine
By ETHAN BRONNER and CHRISTINE HAUSER
November 29, 2012 

New York Times

UNITED NATIONS — More than 130 countries voted on Thursday to upgrade Palestine to a nonmember observer state of the United Nations, a triumph for Palestinian diplomacy and a sharp rebuke to the United States and Israel.

But the vote, at least for now, did little to bring either the Palestinians or the Israelis closer to the goal they claim to seek: two states living side by side, or increased Palestinian unity. Israel and the militant group Hamas both responded critically to the day’s events, though for different reasons.

The new status will give the Palestinians more tools to challenge Israel in international legal forums for its occupation activities in the West Bank, including settlement-building, and it helped bolster the Palestinian Authority, weakened after eight days of battle between its rival Hamas and Israel.

But even as a small but determined crowd of 2,000 celebrated in central Ramallah in the West Bank, waving flags and dancing, there was an underlying sense of concerned resignation.

“I hope this is good,” said Munir Shafie, 36, an electrical engineer who was there. “But how are we going to benefit?”

Still, the General Assembly vote — 138 countries in favor, 9 opposed and 41 abstaining — showed impressive backing for the Palestinians at a difficult time. It was taken on the 65th anniversary of the vote to divide the former British mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, a vote Israel considers the international seal of approval for its birth.

The past two years of Arab uprisings have marginalized the Palestinian cause to some extent as nations that focused their political aspirations on the Palestinian struggle have turned inward. The vote on Thursday, coming so soon after the Gaza fighting, put the Palestinians again — if briefly, perhaps — at the center of international discussion.

“The question is, where do we go from here and what does it mean?” Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, who was in New York for the vote, said in an interview. “The sooner the tough rhetoric of this can subside and the more this is viewed as a logical consequence of many years of failure to move the process forward, the better.” He said nothing would change without deep American involvement.

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, speaking to the assembly’s member nations, said, “The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the state of Palestine,” and he condemned what he called Israeli racism and colonialism. His remarks seemed aimed in part at Israel and in part at Hamas. But both quickly attacked him for the parts they found offensive.

“The world watched a defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious propaganda against the Israel Defense Forces and the citizens of Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel responded. “Someone who wants peace does not talk in such a manner.”

While Hamas had officially backed the United Nations bid of Mr. Abbas, it quickly criticized his speech because the group does not recognize Israel.

“There are controversial issues in the points that Abbas raised, and Hamas has the right to preserve its position over them,” said Salah al-Bardaweel, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, on Thursday.

“We do not recognize Israel, nor the partition of Palestine, and Israel has no right in Palestine,” he added. “Getting our membership in the U.N. bodies is our natural right, but without giving up any inch of Palestine’s soil.”

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, spoke after Mr. Abbas and said he was concerned that the Palestinian Authority failed to recognize Israel for what it is.

“Three months ago, Israel’s prime minister stood in this very hall and extended his hand in peace to President Abbas,” Mr. Prosor said. “He reiterated that his goal was to create a solution of two states for two peoples, where a demilitarized Palestinian state will recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

“That’s right. Two states for two peoples. In fact, President Abbas, I did not hear you use the phrase ‘two states for two peoples’ this afternoon. In fact, I have never heard you say the phrase ‘two states for two peoples’ because the Palestinian leadership has never recognized that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.”

The Israelis also say that the fact that Mr. Abbas is not welcome in Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave run by Hamas, from which he was ejected five years ago, shows that there is no viable Palestinian leadership living up to its obligations now.

As expected, the vote won backing from a number of European countries, and was a rebuff to intense American and Israeli diplomacy. France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland all voted yes. Britain and Germany abstained. Apart from Canada, no major country joined the United States and Israel in voting no. The other opponents included Palau, Panama and Micronesia.

Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, was dismissive of the entire exercise. “Today’s grand pronouncements will soon fade,” she said. “And the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed, save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded.”

A major concern for the Americans is that the Palestinians may use their new status to try to join the International Criminal Court. That prospect particularly worries the Israelis, who fear that the Palestinians may press for an investigation of their practices in the occupied territories widely viewed as violations of international law.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said that after the vote “life will not be the same” because “Palestine will become a country under occupation.”

“The terms of reference for any negotiations become withdrawal,” Mr. Erekat said.

Another worry is that the Palestinians may use the vote to seek membership in specialized agencies of the United Nations, a move that could have consequences for the financing of the international organizations as well as the Palestinian Authority itself. Congress cut off financing to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as Unesco, in 2011 after it accepted Palestine as a member. The United States is a major contributor to many of these agencies and is active on their governing boards.

In response to the Palestinian bid, a bipartisan group of senators said Thursday that they would introduce legislation that would cut off foreign aid to the authority if it tried to use the International Criminal Court against Israel, and close the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington if Palestinians refused to negotiate with Israel.

Calling the Palestinian bid “an unhealthy step that could undermine the peace process,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said that he and the other senators, including Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, would be closely monitoring the situation.

The vote came shortly after an eight-day Israeli military assault on Gaza that Israel described as a response to stepped-up rocket fire into Israel. The operation killed scores of Palestinians and was aimed at reducing the arsenal of Hamas in Gaza, part of the territory that the United Nations resolution expects to make up a future state of Palestine.

The Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, was politically weakened by the Gaza fighting, with its rivals in Hamas seen by many Palestinians as more willing to stand up to Israel and fight back. That shift in sentiment is one reason that some Western countries gave for backing the United Nations resolution, to strengthen Mr. Abbas and his more moderate colleagues in their contest with Hamas.



Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting from Washington, Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem, and Khaled Abu Aker from Ramallah, West Bank.

Palestinians Fight For UN Recognition Continues Despite Pressure From the U.S. and Israel

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/24/world/palestinians-submit-statehood-bid-at-un.html?_r=1&emc=na

All,

This is great news...Long Live Palestine!

Kofi


September 23, 2011

Palestinians Formally Request U.N. Membership
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
New York Times


UNITED NATIONS — Resisting American pressure, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority formally requested full United Nations membership on Friday as a path toward statehood, rejecting arguments by the United States and Israel that it was not a substitute for direct negotiations for peace in the Middle East.

Mr. Abbas handed a letter requesting the membership to Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary General, before delivering his speech at the annual General Assembly. Mr. Ban was submitting the request to the Security Council.

Speaking to Palestinian Americans who came to his hotel Thursday night, Mr. Abbas said the United States had aggressively sought to deter him from the move but that he had insisted on proceeding.

“There are small countries in the world that have gained their freedom and independence but we still haven’t got ours,” Mr. Abbas told his guests. “So we are going to demand this right.”

The request for Palestinian statehood on land occupied by Israel has become the dominant issue at this year’s General Assembly, refocusing global attention on one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.

The Security Council will likely take up the issue in earnest next week, diplomats said, when the question becomes whether the United States and its allies can stall it. Washington is also working to prevent the Palestinians from gathering the nine votes needed for it to pass in the full council and thus avoid further wrecking the image of the United States in the Middle East by casting yet another veto against something Arabs want.

The final vote is not expected to take place for more than a month.

Among the 15 members, some are expected to stay solidly in the Palestinian camp including Russia, China, Lebanon, South Africa, India and Brazil. The United States is a solid vote against, and the five European members—Britain, France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal and Germany—are all question marks. The positions of Colombia, Nigeria and Gabon are also not entirely clear.

The African Union supports membership, but it is not entirely clear if Gabon and Nigeria will go along. President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria did not mention the issue in his speech to the General Assembly, unlike many leaders from the developing world who support Palestine, and the statement by President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, was somewhat enigmatic. He said he hoped to soon see a Palestinian state, but noted that both the Palestinians and the people of Israel are friends of Gabon.

In Latin America, Colombia is the only nation that does not have diplomatic relations with the Palestinians, and it is an American ally. In his General Assembly speech, President Juan Calderon seemed to echo the line from Washington, saying “progress can be made if consistent dialogue and effective mediation are favored.”

In Europe, Germany tends to lean against, its relations with Israel always overshadowed by the legacy of World War II. France leans the other way, while Britain sits on the fence. Portugal and Bosnia have been close to the Palestinians and the Arab world in the past, but their support is not assured this time around.

In theory, United Nations procedures demand that the special 15-member committee — one from each state — that studies the membership issue report back in 35 days, but nothing is more flexible than a deadline at the United Nations. Security Council members can stall things for weeks and weeks by requesting more information or by saying they are waiting for instructions from their capitals.

Behind them, though, looms the policy enunciated by President Nicholas Sarkozy of France, who said that the Palestinians should get enhanced membership in the General Assembly, moving from an observer entity to a non-member observer state.

Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, said it would wait to see what happens in the Security Council before moving forward. By tradition, the General Assembly does not take up an issue when the Security Council is studying it and vice versa, but it is not impossible.

The historic day of speeches engendered a sense that the issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict had come full circle. The Palestinians call their membership application a desperate attempt to preserve the two-state solution despite encroaching Israeli settlements, as well as an attempt to shake up the negotiations that they feel have achieved little after 20 years of American oversight.

The question is whether trying to bring the intractable problem back to its international roots will somehow provide the needed jolt to get negotiations moving again.

The general point of view of the Israeli government and its supporters is that the Palestinians and their Arab allies gave up the right to the United Nations resolutions detailing a two state solution by rejecting that original plan and waging war against Israel for six decades.

But after every war, the United Nations resolutions and indeed the peace treaties with other Arab states have all reaffirmed the resolutions that outline the two-state compromise, starting with General Assembly resolution 181 in 1947. In the annex of their membership application submitted to Mr. Ban today, the Palestinians listed every United Nations resolution that envisioned a two-state solution that has not been implemented, they said.

Bypassing the Opposition of the United States and Israel Palestinians Assert Desire for Official UN Recognition of Palestine

Damon Winter/The New York Times
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, listened Wednesday as President Obama spoke at the United Nations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/obama-rebuffed-as-palestinians-pursue-un-seat.html?_r=1&nl=us&emc=politicsemailemb1

All,

This is an extremely significant and progressive step for the Palestinians and their decades long struggle for national statehood and the concrete realization of the guiding principle of self determination in fact and not just in theory. It is especially groundbreaking to see the Palestinian Authority leadership via President Abbas and his diplomatic team make both implicit and explicit demands on the United States and Israel to acknowledge them formally as a representative sovereign state within the larger political, economic, and cultural context of the global community of nations without simply passively submitting to the overweening "guidance", "requirements" and "advice" of either the United State or Israel. By demanding an equal and reciprocal role in establishing and defining the actual political, economic, and cultural parameters of the tripartite relationships between Palestine, Israel, and the U.S., the Palestinians have eloquently and forthrightly put the entire world on notice that no matter what the U.S. State Department, President Obama, or the Likud government of Israel thinks or does, Palestine itself will also now take a leading role in forcefully asserting and determining what the true contours of working for Independence, Peace, and Justice will be and mean not only for Israel and Palestine as mutually responsible (and respectful) independent nation states in the region known as the "Middle East", but for the many residents, governments, and regional/global supporters of both Jews and Arabs in these two nations. And this will be so no matter what their various individual religious or cultural identities happen to be or what nation(s) they happen to "belong" to...

Kofi


Obama Rebuffed as Palestinians Pursue U.N. Seat
By HELENE COOPER and STEVEN LEE MYERS
September 21, 2011
New York Times

UNITED NATIONS — A last-ditch American effort to head off a Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations faltered. President Obama tried to qualify his own call, just a year ago, for a Palestinian state. And President Nicolas Sarkozy of France stepped forcefully into the void, with a proposal that pointedly repudiated Mr. Obama’s approach.

Doug Mills/The New York Times
President Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, saying, “Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the U.N.”

The extraordinary tableau Wednesday at the United Nations underscored a stark new reality: the United States is facing the prospect of having to share, or even cede, its decades-long role as the architect of Middle East peacemaking.

Even before Mr. Obama walked up to the General Assembly podium to make his difficult address, where he declared that “Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the U.N.,” American officials acknowledged that their various last-minute attempts to jump-start Israeli-Palestinian negotiations with help from European allies and Russia had collapsed.

American diplomats turned their attention to how to navigate a new era in which questions of Palestinian statehood are squarely on the global diplomatic agenda. There used to be three relevant players in any Middle East peace effort: the Palestinians, Israel and the United States. But expansions of settlements in the West Bank and a hardening of Israeli attitudes have isolated Israel and its main backer, the United States. Dissension among Palestinian factions has undermined the prospect for a new accord as well.

Finally, Washington politics has limited Mr. Obama’s ability to try to break the logjam if that means appearing to distance himself from Israel. Republicans have mounted a challenge to lure away Jewish voters who supported Democrats in the past, after some Jewish leaders sharply criticized Mr. Obama for trying to push Israel too hard.

The result has been two and a half years of stagnation on the Middle East peace front that has left Arabs — and many world leaders — frustrated, and ready to try an alternative to the American-centric approach that has prevailed since the 1970s.

“The U.S. cannot lead on an issue that it is so boxed in on by its domestic politics,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator in the government of Ehud Barak. “And therefore, with the region in such rapid upheaval and the two-state solution dying, as long as the U.S. is paralyzed, others are going to have to step up.”

Mr. Obama himself seemed to forecast this back in May when, speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he warned that events in the Middle East could lead to a challenge to the status quo if the Israelis and Palestinians did not move quickly toward a peace deal.

“There’s a reason why the Palestinians are pursuing their interests at the United Nations,” Mr. Obama said then. “They recognize that there is an impatience with the peace process, or the absence of one, not just in the Arab world, in Latin America, in Asia, and in Europe. And that impatience is growing, and it’s already manifesting itself in capitals around the world.”

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, delivered on the threat. He announced last Friday his plans to go to the Security Council in a quest for Palestinian membership in the United Nations and international legal recognition of statehood, putting Mr. Obama in the position of having to stand in the way. Israel and its allies in Congress, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel enjoys broad influence, were sharply opposed.

So on Wednesday, Mr. Obama “did exactly what he had to do,” said David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official and a visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “He made a clear statement for what is a clear U.S. position and put himself squarely as a champion of the status quo.”

Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Rothkopf said, “has managed to read the U.S. political situation perfectly, making Obama acutely aware that he could be losing part of his base, and that, I think, in turn is what has locked Obama in.”

The Palestinians have never fully trusted the United States to serve as an honest broker with Israel. But its credibility with the Palestinians has crumbled with the recognition that Mr. Obama may not have the clout to press the Israelis into a peace deal that requires significant compromises.

“The president in his speech at the U.N. today admitted that the U.S. somehow failed in bridging the gap between the two sides,” the Palestinian representative in Washington, Maen Rashid Areikat, said in an interview on Wednesday. “He said that he feels frustration and he understands the frustration of everybody. That’s good, but I think it goes much deeper. I think what the U.S. administration needs to say is why it failed.”

He acknowledged the administration’s efforts — with the appointment of George J. Mitchell Jr. as special envoy to the region and Mr. Obama’s own speeches, especially in Cairo — but said the momentum of his early presidency flagged as the administration bound itself so closely to the Israelis and their supporters in the United States, especially Congress. The Palestinians ultimately decided that the best hope for breaking an impasse with the Israelis rested with making their case to a larger international forum.

“One big reason for losing that momentum,” he said, “was the failure of the administration to use its leverage with an Israeli government that adamantly was opposed to the efforts of the United States to bridge the gap in the Middle East.”

After Mr. Obama laid out his defense of the peace process, Mr. Sarkozy took to the same podium in a forceful disavowal of Mr. Obama’s position. “Let us cease our endless debates on the parameters,” he said, calling instead for a General Assembly resolution that would upgrade the Palestinians to “observer status” as a bridge toward statehood. “Let us begin negotiations, and adopt a precise timetable.”

The outcome of the Palestinian bid for membership remains uncertain. The administration still hopes that the process of considering the Palestinian bid at the Security Council could provide a fresh opportunity for new talks. The move puts new pressure on Mr. Netanyahu’s government, reeling from setbacks to its security from the turmoil of the Arab Spring, with results that analysts say are hard to forecast. But a quick return to the status quo, when the United States dictated the terms of talks, seems unlikely, given strong Russian and French support for a new approach by the Palestinians.

Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, told reporters after Mr. Sarkozy’s speech that the United States “cannot do it alone” in negotiations for a Middle East peace, and that a collective approach was needed. Mr. Juppe said he thought this time that the five permanent Security Council members should have a direct role in shepherding talks.

Somewhat incongruously, Mr. Sarkozy visited Mr. Obama’s hotel on Wednesday afternoon for a previously scheduled meeting with the president, and was effusive, in front of the cameras before the meeting, in his praise for Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama, for his part, refused to engage with reporters assembled for the photo op. “Do you support the French one-year timeline?” one reporter asked. Mr. Obama responded, “I already answered a question from you before.”

Another reporter asked Mr. Obama if he agreed with the French position on Palestine. Mr. Obama smiled and replied, “Bonjour.” A third reporter queried if that response constituted a “no comment.” The president’s response: “No comment.”



Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting.

Palestinians Fight For National Statehood and UN Recognition As U.S. Hypocrisy Is Exposed

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/2011919102245537768.html

All,

This is what predictably happens when you don't stand up for and protect the human and political rights of the Palestinians for real self determination and national statehood (who after all have been thoroughly disenfranchised, oppressed, and marginalized as a People since 1948!), and you simultaneously pretend that the openly reactionary Israeli government really cares about dealing with and genuinely acknowledging this right. Nothing that Obama says at this point changes that glaring and indisputable fact. Unless and until the Palestinians actually attain national sovereignty in real terms (as well as the respect and support of the global community of nations) and not merely symbolically or rhetorically the U.S. and President Obama will continue to be "humiliated" as the following article suggests. And they will have ironically earned the mutual contempt of both the colonizers (Israel) and the colonized (Palestine) in the process. That's what state sanctioned lies, imperialism, and hypocisy always leads to sooner or later, and this situation is no different...This is what many people throughout the world mean when they say (as they have been for many decades now) that "the Palestinians are the niggers of the Middle East" and they are thus treated accordingly. In this nation still dominated by the evil doctrine of White Supremacy we all know what that means...

Kofi


The humiliation of Barack Obama

As he prepares to singularly veto Palestine's statehood bid, he must be thinking to himself: 'This isn't right'.

by Robert Grenier
20 September 2011
Al Jazeera



Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has no qualms with rejecting President Obama's terms outright [GALLO/GETTY]


Sooner or later, it's going to happen. Most likely, the moment will come just before his first head-of-state meeting in New York. Or perhaps it will happen just before his first side-bar meeting with Binyamin Netanyahu. Or then again, it may come as the cumulative reaction to a series of embarrassing encounters with fellow world leaders. But the moment will come.

At some point this coming week, during his visit to the this year's opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, US President Barack Obama is going to have a nearly irresistible urge. He is going to want to stand up to his hovering political handlers and the smothering bureaucracy which tries to dictate his every move, summon his personal dignity, and say "Enough".

In April of 1995, President Clinton played host to then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan. US-Pakistan relations were in sharp decline. A few years before, the US had begun to implement sanctions mandated by the so-called Pressler Amendment, under which Pakistan was to be punished with a complete cutoff of aid and of military sales if it were found to be pursuing a nuclear-weapons capability. The first President Bush had made such a finding, and now the ties between the two countries were being progressively cut.

At the heart of the growing ill-feeling between the two nations was the US cancellation of a previously-agreed sale of 28 F-16 fighter aircraft. The Pakistanis had realised when they signed the purchase deal that it might be cancelled if the Pressler Amendment were invoked. Now, given the law and the previous assertion of Pakistani culpability from President Bush, there was no longer any question of delivering the aircraft. But there was another wrinkle.

The Pakistanis had paid enormous sums of money which they could ill afford, in advance, for the airplanes. And now, according to the US, not only could the Pakistanis not have the warplanes, but they couldn't have their money back, either. You see, the money wasn't there anymore; it had been spent by the contractor. The planes had been built. There was no provision under US law to provide appropriated funds to compensate the Pakistanis.

Yes, the F-16s could perhaps be sold to another country and the proceeds given to Pakistan, but that, too, might require approval from a hostile US congress, and would most likely not be forthcoming. In short, there was nothing to be done. And as if to add insult to injury, the Pakistanis were also being charged a hefty annual storage fee for each plane - each plane that they could not have.

Defending the indefensible

When the entire US foreign policy/national security apparatus begins to move in one direction, it is an impressive sight. A vast bureaucracy churns out elaborate rationales for its decided policy, and these are mind-numbingly repeated in dozens of different ways for use in dozens of different fora. This was a classic case in point.




Obama will be forced to humiliate himself at the UN, as he tries to explain why he must singularly veto the bid for Palestinian statehood [GALLO/GETTY]

I saw it myself from inside the State Department bureaucracy, where I was serving at the time. Justifications for the patently unjustifiable were delivered to the Pakistanis at all levels. They were mouthed by State Department and White House spokesmen, repeated in Congressional testimony, delivered to the press in many different settings, elaborated in written responses to inquiries from congressmen and the public, to say nothing of internal communications in the Executive Branch.

All of this bureaucratic momentum hurtled forward towards the climactic moment when President Clinton would deliver the same message, in person, to Prime Minister Bhutto.

The preparations for such encounters are, again, highly impressive. Huge briefing books requiring hundreds of man-hours are drawn up. They contain scene-setters, and backgrounders, and elaborate policy justifications, backed up with legal briefs organised under alphabeticised tabs, followed by detailed talking points designed to turn the president into a virtual ventriloquist's dummy. And then the whole lot is coordinated and cleared up through the system, through the secretary of state, and the National Security Council, to the president himself.

And so it was here. But in this case, at the very end, having carefully studied all this codified nonsense, this monument to bureaucratic inertia, and just before walking in to meet with Bhutto, when he would have to look the Pakistani prime minister in the eye and defend the patently indefensible, Clinton did something no one - but no one - in the bureaucracy would ever have anticipated.

With simple, clear-eyed common sense and the innate sense of justice with which God has endowed most five-year-old children, he said, simply, "but this is not fair". And then, wonder of wonders, he walked in and said just that to Bhutto.

Here are Clinton's words recorded moments later, when the two leaders emerged to speak before the press: "I have already made it clear to you, and I don't think any American president has ever said this before, I don't think it's right for us to keep the money and the equipment. That is not right. And I am going to try to find a resolution to it."

If you have not served in America's foreign policy bureaucracy, if you have not seen this from the inside, you cannot imagine the effect which these words would have had - to have a fully elaborated policy position publicly repudiated by the president, completely and unexpectedly, at the last possible moment, and on a world stage. It must have been wonderful. Alas, having seen all the preparation, I was not there for the denouement, having moved on to another job. I would have given anything to see it.

Could it happen again?

But this was a comparatively minor issue, followed by few people outside South Asian policy circles. So just imagine, if you can, something analogous happening at the UN this week, when President Obama has to justify current US policy regarding the Palestinian bid for international recognition as a state.

We all know what the Americans have been saying: That what President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is doing is counter-productive, that it is a repudiation of the Oslo Accords, that it is an attempt to avoid the necessity of reaching a negotiated solution with the Israelis. We have seen the US policy juggernaut gearing up, as the same arguments are repeated by US envoys to the Palestinians and to the Quartet, elaborated publicly by the secretary of state and by the White House spokesman, and delivered in dozens of other fora, both great and small.


To Abbas, it must seem that Obama has a split personality - professing support for the two-state solution while at the same time vetoing the very resolution that would bring it to fruition [GALLO/GETTY]

However, repeating the same thing, loudly and insistently, does not make it so. President Obama knows this very well. He understands the Israeli-Palestinian issue backwards and forwards. He knows the peace process is at a dead end.

Early in his administration, he tried to revive negotiations by mandating a complete West Bank settlement freeze, only to be forced embarrassingly by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to back down. When this past May he had the temerity to publicly tell the Israelis that their current policy towards the Palestinians is untenable and unsustainable, and to modestly suggest a negotiating formula to break the impasse, he was publicly chastised by Netanyahu and had to submit to the humiliation of seeing the Congressional leaders of his own party repudiate him in favour of the Israeli prime minister.

In response, though he cannot admit it, Obama has washed his hands of the Palestinian issue. He knows he can do nothing more. And yet, the issue will not go away.

Now, once again, he is being forced to publicly support an Israeli policy position fundamentally opposed to his own. He knows fully well that Netanyahu has no intention of permitting formation of a viable Palestinian state, and that the Palestinians have little choice but to pursue their current course at the UN.

He likewise understands that the US' lonely support for Israel and the inevitable US veto of the Palestinians' bid for full UN membership will undermine, perhaps terminally, the US position in a democratising Middle East, and will expose the US' nominal support for popular Arab rights as a fraud.

The human dimension

All of this is well understood. We can all see it coming. And yet what is often forgotten is the human dimension.

For the leader of a great nation, at certain points the public becomes personal, as it did for Bill Clinton one day in April, 1995. I do not know President Obama personally, but my sense is that this is a proud man. He does not see himself as an ordinary politician, but as a transformative leader. He has attempted self-consciously to carve out such a role for himself in the context of US relations with the Muslim world, but he has been repeatedly stymied, publicly and disgracefully.

It is one thing to have to sacrifice principle in the face of political reality. All politicians are forced to do so at various points. But it is another to do so in a highly public manner, to have to mouth patent falsehoods in one-on-one meetings with fellow world leaders, who know better and who will think less of you as a result.

This is what lies in store for President Obama in New York, and he knows it.

For one as busy as a US president, there are many distractions, many ways to avoid confronting the unpleasant. But at some point, when the president is alone with his briefing book in New York, it is going to strike him. He will feel a tightening in his chest, and he will have an urge to pick up this plastic-bound tome to craven political expediency and hurl it at someone, and then to walk out and say what he really thinks.

We all know that the president will do no such thing. He will suppress this urge, for to do otherwise would spell political suicide. No, the president will swallow his anger, and do what he must do. But it is worth giving some consideration, as the US again undermines its security and its global position, pointlessly and gratuitously, in blind allegiance to an ungrateful and self-destructive ally, that we will also be watching something else, something far more personal: The public mortification of Barack Hussein Obama.

Robert Grenier is a retired, 27-year veteran of the CIA's Clandestine Service. He was Director of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center from 2004 to 2006.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Source: Al Jazeera

Palestinians Hold Firm In Their Quest To Seek National Statehood Status In The United Nations

Tara Todras-Whitehill/Associated Press
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said Friday his call for statehood was not meant to isolate Israel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/world/middleeast/Abbas-Security-Council-United-Nations-Vote.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

All,

The huge importance of this essential move by the Palestinians for formal recognition of national statehood status in the UN cannot be overstated. This will be the most consequential and significant vote in the United Nations in 50 years and will create an entirely new scenario for the Palestinian people to finally begin realizing their dream for true self determination and national sovereignty. So it's imperative that President Abbas and the general political leadership in Palestine not waver one iota in their commitment to this political strategy both in the short and long run. It will be especially important that the Palestinians not give in or acquiesce on any significant level to the manipulative demands of either the U.S. government in the UN Security Council or to the threats and bullying tactics of the rightwing Likud government in Israel. Real self determination and true national independence begins at the point where a People decide ON THEIR OWN ALONE what course they want and need to take and to courageously indicate to their detractors and enemies in both subtle and overt ways that they are absolutely determined to be free whatever the cost. So if the United States decide to veto them in the UN Security Council next week LET 'EM. This ain't a matter of what the United States so-called "interests" are or what they--or Israel-- "think is best for all concerned." This is a matter of a free and sovereign People deciding for themselves what they KNOW is best for themselves. History, as always, will take care of the rest...

Kofi



Palestinians Set Bid for U.N. Seat, Clashing With U.S.
By ETHAN BRONNER and ISABEL KERSHNER
September 16, 2011
New York Times

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, announced Friday that he would seek membership for a state of Palestine from the United Nations Security Council next week, putting him on a collision course with Israel and the United States as both face an Arab world in turmoil.

Men at a coffee shop in Gaza City watched Friday as President Mahmoud Abbas announced plans to apply for Palestinian membership in the United Nations.

Mr. Abbas’s plan, made public in a television address, follows months of failed American and European efforts to restart Palestinian negotiations with Israel. Some fear that Mr. Abbas’s move will raise expectations among his people, with nothing changing for them on the ground. Combined with alarmed reactions from Israeli settlers, violent showdowns could erupt.

But the Palestinians say that after decades of occupation and about 20 years of failed talks with an increasingly hawkish Israel, it is time for a new approach in which the borders of a Palestinian state are first recognized globally and then two states, Israel and Palestine, negotiate final details.

The decision to apply for membership through the Council signals a double defeat for the United States. Washington not only failed to dissuade the Palestinians from a unilateral bid for statehood, but also fell short of its goal of confining the application to the United Nations General Assembly, where Obama administration officials believe a vote in favor of statehood would be more symbolic and less divisive.

The Obama administration has vowed to use its veto at the Council to prevent full recognition of Palestine. But it is eager to avoid doing so because that action would likely leave the United States isolated on the issue, weakening its standing with Arab nations at a politically delicate moment.

“We need to have full membership at the U.N.,” Mr. Abbas said in the speech from his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, which was broadcast live on Al Jazeera and other outlets. “We need a state, a seat at the United Nations.”

He added, “We are going to the Security Council,” as Palestinian dignitaries gave him rousing applause and a standing ovation. Mr. Abbas called it “our decision, which we have conveyed to everyone.”

The borders Mr. Abbas seeks are those of 1967, meaning East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza would be included. More than 500,000 Israelis have settled beyond those lines.

Israel, while officially accepting the idea of a Palestinian state, wants to leave nearly all of the settlers where they are and keep control of Jerusalem. It also fears militant groups and missiles would penetrate such a state unless Israel controls its borders, an approach rejected by the Palestinians.

One goal of the move is to gain admission to a range of international legal and diplomatic forums where complaints against Israeli occupation and settlement could be pursued. Mr. Abbas said he was not seeking to delegitimize Israel, only to advance negotiations between two equals.

For the Obama administration, the move poses an acute dilemma. It has vowed to use its veto because it argues that the only viable way toward Palestinian statehood is through direct talks with Israel. But for the past eight months, Arab countries have risen in revolt against dictators and the Palestinian question has totemic significance for the entire region.

The United States has struggled to place itself on the side of those seeking justice and freedom in the current revolts. But the Obama administration has supported uprisings in Libya and, less strongly, in Syria, while looking the other way during a crackdown by an ally, Bahrain. A veto of Palestinian membership would intensify Arab perceptions of American double standards.

Moreover, Republican lawmakers have vowed to end American aid to the Palestinian Authority if it seeks United Nations membership, something the administration opposes. That could create further chaos on the ground.

The White House sent two senior diplomats, Dennis B. Ross and David M. Hale, on repeated trips to Jerusalem and Ramallah in recent weeks to try to work out an alternative to a United Nations campaign.

In recent days, senior administration officials said, the United States was trying to get agreement on a statement, backed by the international community, affirming President Obama’s proposal last May to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state. That plan would use as a baseline the pre-1967 boundaries of Israel, with land swaps. But Palestinian officials said it was too little too late.

“We ask President Obama to face the moment of truth,” Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior Palestinian official, said afterward. “This is a peaceful measure. There is no reason whatsoever for the United States not to support us on this step.”

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel issued a curt statement, saying, “Peace will not be achieved by a unilateral approach to the United Nations.”

Mr. Netanyahu says that the Palestinians must not be rewarded for avoiding direct talks and tough sacrifices. Some of his ministers have called for a range of punitive responses, including annexing portions of the West Bank or removing travel privileges from Palestinian officials. He has not expressed himself publicly on those suggestions.

At the Arab League, which had strongly urged the Palestinians to take the less confrontational path of seeking limited statehood recognition via the General Assembly, an official said the group would now nonetheless stand firmly behind Mr. Abbas. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity in order not to upstage leaders of the league, who were traveling to New York for the United Nations annual meetings.

Officials of Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction that controls Gaza, said Mr. Abbas’s declaration was a useless stunt aimed at continuing what it called fruitless negotiations with Israel, which Hamas does not recognize as a legitimate state.

“The speech is an attempt to justify the negotiations,” said Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, reached by telephone. He argued that turning to the United Nations would get Mr. Abbas nothing.

Hamas has banned public demonstrations in Gaza to support Mr. Abbas’s move. Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, told reporters that Mr. Abbas had approached the United Nations unilaterally, without winning support from the group, despite what Mr. Barhoum called the Palestinian president’s rhetoric about reconciliation.

Mr. Abbas’s speech was played live on the official channel Palestine TV with the “UN 194” logo of the statehood recognition bid in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. Some Palestinians listened; others said it mattered little because the United States would veto it.

Admission to the United Nations as a full member state requires a recommendation from the 15-member Security Council, with a majority of nine votes, and no veto from the five permanent members, which include the United States. Then the submission goes to the General Assembly, which must pass it by a two-thirds vote among the 193 members.

The American vow to veto has already made it clear that the membership application will not make it out of the Council. But as in other matters involving the United Nations bureaucracy, procedural and legal tools can delay the application for weeks or months along the way. And the Palestinians could still subsequently seek less formal recognition of statehood through the General Assembly.

Mr. Abbas is aware of the obstacles ahead, some diplomats said, and may not object to the uncertainty. He ended his speech, saying, “As for other options, we have not yet taken a decision on them.”

The theory is that by going to the Council, Mr. Abbas makes his strongest political and symbolic act. And for Mr. Abbas, a man who is 76 and speaks frequently about retiring, that may be part of the point. In addition, the procedural delays at the Council could provide the time for an alternative negotiation framework to mature.

But that is a distinctly minority view of how events are likely to proceed. Most analysts and officials fear the combination of Israeli and Palestinian intransigence, along with a roiling region, will create the conditions for confrontation rather than negotiation.



Reporting was contributed by Rick Gladstone from New York; Anthony Shadid from Beirut, Lebanon; Mark Landler from Washington; David D. Kirkpatrick and Heba Afify from Cairo; Stephen Farrell from Ramallah, West Bank; Fares Akram from Gaza; and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.

Palestinians Remain Steadfast in Fighting For International Recognition of Their Quest for National Statehood at the United Nations

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah distributed pamphlets and flags this week in a campaign to support the bid for statehood at the United Nations

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/world/middleeast/palestinians-say-un-gamble-is-worth-the-risk.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22

All,

It's absolutely essential that the Palestinians continue to go their own way politically and vigorously pursue international recognition and support for their national independence and sovereignty in the United Nations. Neither the United States nor Israel are either willing or prepared to protect, support, or defend Palestine's right to self determination and eminently just quest for independent statehood. If the leadership of the Palestinian Authority and in particular President Abbas can hold on despite enormous pressures and disapproval from both the U.S. and the Israeli government as they pursue this course than real progress will be made in the long run, if not immediately. Of course it will be painted by the Obama administration, Israel, and the national media as an impediment to "peace talks" with Israel but the bottomline truth despite everyone's best wishes and desires to the contrary is that will be no real viable peace in the Middle East unless and until the fundamental question of Palestinian statehood is actually addressed and dealt with in real, concrete terms and not merely rhetorically. An internationally supported United Nations resolution on behalf of the Palestinian people will at least be a major step toward this accomplishing this crucial and desperately urgent goal...

Kofi


Palestinians Say a U.N. Gamble on Statehood Is Worth the Risks
By ISABEL KERSHNER
September 14, 2011
New York Times

KALANDIA, West Bank — It is far from clear what will happen when the Palestinians go to the United Nations next week to seek recognition of statehood. But the initiative is engaging a Palestinian public that had become deeply cynical after 20 years of intermittent Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

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Many Palestinians here in this refugee camp between Ramallah and Jerusalem said that they were excited by the prospect of their territory’s being declared a state, but that they recognized that it would not immediately improve their lives. Instead, they braced for possible punitive steps by the United States and Israel.

“Abu Mazen is doing a good thing, but the reactions could be bad,” said Khairiyya Abd al-Rahman, 66, a matronly resident of the refugee camp, using the popular name of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Going to the United Nations remains a high-stakes gambit for Mr. Abbas. Whether it succeeds or fails, the Palestinians’ frustration is likely to increase if their reality does not change. And while many Palestinians say they do not foresee the eruption of a third uprising, they warn that something is bound to give eventually if there is no measurable progress.

“Of course frustration can turn to chaos,” said Najeh Abd al-Majid, another resident of the camp, a frequent point of clashes between Palestinian youths and the Israeli military.

When the annual United Nations gathering begins on Monday, the Palestinian leadership could take its statehood bid to the Security Council, where the United States has vowed to use its veto, or it could opt for a vote in the General Assembly, a more modest route that would upgrade the Palestinian representation to that of a nonmember observer state, comparable to the Holy See.

Israel and the United States have tried to stop the showdown altogether, warning of dire consequences and insisting that the only way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is through direct negotiations. Israel has not spelled out the possible fallout of a vote, but some on the right have called for the suspension of the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, the cancellation of agreements and the annexation of territory containing Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank. There has been talk in Washington of cutting financing as well.

Yet the Palestinian public’s mood is strongly in favor of the United Nations bid, whatever the risks.

“We have to do it,” said Selwa Yassin, 51, from the village of Ein Yabrud in the Ramallah district.

“The consequences,” Ms. Yassin said, “cannot be worse than losing all of Palestine.”

For now, the Palestinian leadership is trying to foster a festive atmosphere.

In Ramallah on Tuesday, volunteers gave store owners and motorists flags emblazoned with the campaign logo “U.N. Palestine State No. 194,” a reference to the goal of becoming the 194th member of the United Nations.

Those acquainted with the details say that the aspiration is to become a full-member state. “We do not want an honorary position,” said Qusai Khatib, 40, a barber and a teacher in Kalandia. “This would have no taste.”

For Palestinians seeking independence, even virtual statehood would represent a new phase in a long struggle. But in a reflection of the Palestinian leadership’s conflicted attitude toward its own initiative, Mr. Abbas appears to want to shake things up abroad while avoiding any major turmoil at home.

His instructions are for peaceful rallies to take place in the center of Palestinian cities, far from any friction points with the Israelis. Organizers have called on the Palestinian public to rally twice, on Sept. 21, the opening of the general debate in the United Nations General Assembly, and on Sept. 23, when Mr. Abbas is scheduled to address the forum.

“From our side, no confrontations, no chaos,” Mr. Abbas told reporters in Ramallah last week. “Our instructions were very strict: Don’t go to the roadblocks, don’t make any friction with the Israelis, don’t run to the Israelis. If they come to the cities, don’t react.”

The Palestinian leadership has recruited Abdallah Abu Rahma, an advocate of nonviolence and a leader of the popular resistance movement from Bilin, a West Bank village, as the coordinator of the “Palestine 194” campaign.

“We are trying to be like the Arab Spring,” Mr. Abu Rahma said, “to bring large numbers of Palestinians into the squares.”

The eagerness to avoid confrontation stems from the leadership’s desire to preserve its interests, according to Palestinian experts. Among other things, the Palestinian Authority, which governs in the West Bank, wants to maintain security cooperation with Israel and to prevent its rival, Hamas, the militant Islamic group that controls Gaza, from exploiting any tumult. It also wants to continue with state-building efforts and to avoid further damage to the authority’s already troubled financial situation.

“This is the outcome of a bargaining process within the Palestinian leadership,” said Khalil Shikaki, a prominent Palestinian political analyst in Ramallah. “It is about how to balance between those who want to do something dramatic and those who want to maintain the status quo, however despicable the situation may be.”

Mr. Shikaki added that Mr. Abbas, who is cautious by nature, also might not want to jeopardize the chance of resuming negotiations with the Israelis.

Palestinians say they fear provocations by Israeli settlers. Extremists have already stepped up their activities, vandalizing two mosques in West Bank villages this month.

The Israeli military says that it will tolerate Palestinian demonstrations within the confines of the cities and will generally act with restraint.

Brig. Gen. Michael Edelstein, the chief officer commanding the paratroopers and infantry responsible for preserving order this month, told reporters that the army had equipped itself with a broader range of nonlethal weaponry. It has acquired more than 20 water-cannon trucks that can spray water or a foul-smelling liquid known locally as skunk; huge loudspeakers that can also emit intolerable noise to scatter protesters; and tear-gas launchers fitted with sights to allow soldiers to aim better when firing the gas canisters.

Palestinians insist that the new emphasis is on peaceful resistance after two intifadas that they say achieved little. But there are concerns that encouraging people to demonstrate in the streets could unleash unpredictable forces.

“People are not interested in clashes,” said Yusef Ehab, 18, who works in his family’s toy shop in downtown Ramallah. That would serve the Israelis’ interest, he said, because “Israel is interested in showing how the Palestinians are violent.”

“Peacefully, peacefully,” he said, raising his hands in a sign of surrender.