October 06, 2014
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’
speech to the UN General Assembly Friday was expected to launch a process that
combines wishes with threats. Both sides of that equation show why the
Palestinian leadership under Abbas, and Yasser Arafat previously, has achieved
virtually nothing in the last two decades since the Oslo Accords launched the
Palestinian Authority experiment.
Abbas specifically wants the UN Security Council
(UNSC) to pass a resolution that would establish a Palestinian state in the
West Bank and Gaza within three years, and if that does not fly he wants the
United States to revive bilateral negotiations that would see Israelis and
Palestinians focus immediately on the borders of a new Palestinian state. If
this approach does not succeed, Abbas also threatens to sign the statutes of
the International Criminal Court (ICC) and take the Palestine state case there.
He would reportedly delay this if major European powers recognized the state of
Palestine.
How he expects to convince the United States to
go along with these ideas is not clear, and the main reason for this is that
Abbas has no bargaining power to nudge the United States into his camp. The
Abbas approach is diplomatically weak because he is politically weak — for he
has not marshaled behind him the forces and assets at his disposal in order to
be in a bargaining situation that enjoys some credibility. Those forces and
assets are considerable, and have been on public view on and off for some
years.
They include a unified Palestinian government
acting through a revived Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); strong
popular support for his position by Palestinians everywhere; the backing of
Arab governments who have been fickle for years but will support a reasonable
Palestinian position; and the support of millions of ordinary people and over
150 governments around the world that have spoken out for ending the Israeli
occupation and establishing a Palestinian state. Abbas would be in a much
stronger position at the UN if he had marshaled these and other assets to back
his demands, and put some teeth into his threats to act in other arenas if the
UN and the United States do not make progress on Palestinian statehood and the
end of Israel’s occupation.
The problem here is two-fold: Abbas is making
these decisions on his own without consulting widely among all Palestinians,
and he is using the ICC as a threat, when it should be a central component in
any Palestinian strategy that seeks to hold Israel accountable to the
international rule of law. There is a long and deep (and continuing) catalogue
of Israeli actions against Palestinians that contravene international
humanitarian law (IHL) and various conventions on war crimes and crimes against
humanity. There is strong support among all Palestinians for going to the ICC,
including Hamas who must be part of any serious diplomatic initiative.
The Palestinian leadership should have turned to
international legal forums years ago in order to pressure Israel by harnessing
the power of international public opinion through sanctions and boycotts, just
as was the case with Apartheid South Africa decades ago. IHL should be a
central pillar of Palestinian diplomacy that is only effective when it rests on
a foundation of international legitimacy.
Neither militants’ resistance fire from Gaza nor
Abbas’ repeated supplications to the United States and Israel by themselves can
force Israel to end its occupation, agree to a Palestinian state and work with
others to end the refugeehood that is a central Palestinian grievance. The
combination that has not been attempted, and would probably be more effective
than all the recent diplomatic duds, would include the legitimating force of
international law and conventions with the dynamism of popular actions, like
non-violent passive resistance and international sanctions and boycotts, backed
up by the deterrent power of military resistance.
Abbas’ approach that he articulates at the UN
this week weakens all of these elements individually and collectively, when his
approach should be precisely the opposite. The Palestine cause is just and
compelling, but on its own moral and legal merits it has no power to leverage
global diplomacy in order to achieve Palestinian rights and a lasting peace
agreement that responds to Israeli and Palestinian needs alike. One of the
unfortunate weaknesses that has left the Palestine issue unresolved for so long
has been the incompetence of the Palestinian leadership, which achieved record
heights after the Oslo Accords of 1993 created the Palestinian Authority. This
move degraded the national deliberation and representation role of the PLO, and
removed international law and conventions as the anchorage for any diplomatic
moves. Abbas should be working to reverse these mistakes, rather than
perpetuating them as he seems to be doing.
Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large
of The Daily Star, and
director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International
Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. On
Twitter: @ramikhouri.
Copyright © 2014 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by
Agence Global