John Bolton: Obama and the Coming Palestinian State
[Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad".]
Direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, for 21 months the centerpiece of Obama administration Middle East policy, are moving inevitably toward collapse. The talks may limp past our Nov. 2 election, but they are doomed to fail.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) fully understands that the talks—and the "two state solution"—will fail. It needs a plan B. Accordingly, several ideas are circulating to skip bothersome negotiations with Israel and move immediately to Palestinian "statehood."
Two different tactical approaches have emerged. In one, the PA would persuade the United States to recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, within the pre-1967 cease-fire lines (often characterized, wrongly, as "borders"). The other option would have the United Nations Security Council call upon U.N. members to recognize "Palestine" within those lines. Critical to this second tactic is a U.S. commitment either to support such a Security Council resolution or, at a minimum, not to veto it.
In many respects, these and related gambits hearken back to the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) 1988 declaration of statehood, which was recognized by dozens of U.N. members, including many in Europe. The PLO then tried capitalizing on the declaration by seeking membership in U.N. agencies like the World Health Organization, which require members to be "states." In this way, the PLO sought to create "facts on the ground" in the international arena that it hadn't been able to establish through force.
Those efforts failed because of Washington's determined opposition within the U.N. system, and the overall effort faded away. The PLO gained no new legitimacy, although it did change its General Assembly nameplate from "Palestine Liberation Organization" to "Palestine," which passes for substance at the U.N.
This time is different...
Read entire article at WSJ
Direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, for 21 months the centerpiece of Obama administration Middle East policy, are moving inevitably toward collapse. The talks may limp past our Nov. 2 election, but they are doomed to fail.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) fully understands that the talks—and the "two state solution"—will fail. It needs a plan B. Accordingly, several ideas are circulating to skip bothersome negotiations with Israel and move immediately to Palestinian "statehood."
Two different tactical approaches have emerged. In one, the PA would persuade the United States to recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, within the pre-1967 cease-fire lines (often characterized, wrongly, as "borders"). The other option would have the United Nations Security Council call upon U.N. members to recognize "Palestine" within those lines. Critical to this second tactic is a U.S. commitment either to support such a Security Council resolution or, at a minimum, not to veto it.
In many respects, these and related gambits hearken back to the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) 1988 declaration of statehood, which was recognized by dozens of U.N. members, including many in Europe. The PLO then tried capitalizing on the declaration by seeking membership in U.N. agencies like the World Health Organization, which require members to be "states." In this way, the PLO sought to create "facts on the ground" in the international arena that it hadn't been able to establish through force.
Those efforts failed because of Washington's determined opposition within the U.N. system, and the overall effort faded away. The PLO gained no new legitimacy, although it did change its General Assembly nameplate from "Palestine Liberation Organization" to "Palestine," which passes for substance at the U.N.
This time is different...