Wednesday November 28, 2012

I've Been Thinking :

The Palestinians have decided to go ahead with their proposal to the United Nations for statehood. They have secured support from far more than half of the General Assembly members. Yesterday France announced that they, too, will support the proposal.

The United States is against it.

But the proposal is not what people think it to be. The problem does not lie where people think it lies.

Currently their status is that of an organization - the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization). And so this attempt, though referred to as statehood, is actually a change of status to now become the Palestinian Authority.

They are proposing that their official representation be changed to observer status and that they become recognized not as an organization but as a country. What happens next is the problem.

That change, if approved, effectively means involvement in committees and other roles in the UN.

There has yet to be a negotiated settlement to determine where the country will be located. The PA will be a country without borders.

This is called a unilateral move. A decision or an act made without the partner or the intermediaries - Israel and the United States. That is why there is opposition. And that is why the move is so dangerous to the future of negotiations.

The date that the PA has chosen to present their proposal is also significant. It was on November 29, 1947 that the United Nations originally proposed a two-state solution, a proposal which was rejected by the Arabs at the time.

The date is extremely important to Palestinian leadership, they need it to rectify history.

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