Thursday November 29, 2012

I've Been Thinking:

Today is the day. It is the day the Palestinian Authority brings their request for change of status to the floor of the United Nations.

They have the votes and they will emerge victorious. But what kind of victory will it really be?

The only other parties that count, the two countries that are invested in this decision, its aftermath and its ramifications, the United States and Israel, consider the conferring of statehood on the PA now, in this forum, a diplomatic step back.

I am certain that both the United States and Israel will exact a short term price from the PA for the move. I am just as certain that Palestinian leadership weighed the cost of the decision and then, none the less, decided to absorb the punishment because, in the end, it will be beneficial for them.

The Israeli response does not interest the Palestinians. And the United States will probably only temporarily stop funding them.

Congress will want to exact a serious price, but the Palestinians are convinced that the funding stoppage will only be temporary because the White House will come to their aid and that, after only a few weeks, the money flow will continue just as it did before. Palestinian leadership just assumes that this will be part of an American public dress down.

In their eyes it is an inexpensive cost given how much they will gain in the eyes of the world specifically because they are defying the United States.

That is the irony. Defying the US will in the end not hurt the PA financially. And they will also gain international respect internationally by challenging the US and publicly humiliating them.

And there will be a new state added to the roster of the United Nations.

The United Nations, the enabler.

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