[The official said the
Palestinians were studying various United Nations treaties to see which they
might join. They were focusing on what the official described as “technical”
treaties such as on tourism, water and the environment. He did not provide
further details. The official said they were unlikely to take the bolder step
of seeking membership in United Nations organizations because of United States
laws that would cut financing to United Nations bodies that accept Palestine as
a member state.]
By Diaa Hadid
 |
|
A Palestinian family tending their
vineyard in the West Bank. After Benjamin Netanyahu’s
re-election as Israel’s
leader, Palestinians may curtail security coordination with Israel.
CreditTomas
Munita for The New York Times
|
JERUSALEM — Under most
circumstances, an Israeli leader’s frank admission that he would never agree to
a Palestinian state
would be a disaster for the Palestinian leadership.
But when Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said precisely that in the heat of the recent
election campaign, it seemed to have the opposite effect, validating the
unilateral approach the Palestinians have decided to follow.
“We will continue a
diplomatic intifada. We have no other choice,” said Assad Abdul Rahman, a
member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s central
council and executive committee, its top decision-making body.
With Mr. Netanyahu having
dropped, for now at least, the pretense of seeking a two-state solution, the
Palestinians can argue to Europe and the United States that they no longer have
a negotiating partner, strengthening their case for full statehood and recognition
in the United Nations, as well as membership in important international bodies.
They are already members of the International Criminal Court and Unesco.
“If somebody said, ‘We
are with two states, and real negotiations,’ we would return to negotiations,”
said Assad Abdul Rahman. “But there is no partner for that.”
In addition to
considering seeking full statehood at the United Nations, the Palestinians may
now curtail security coordination with Israel,
reducing Israel’s ability to seize suspected militants in the West
Bank, two P.L.O. officials said.
“There is a feeling that
if there really is no hope for the peace process, the best thing they can have
is an Israeli government that will advance its own isolation,” said Nathan
Thrall, senior analyst with the Middle East and North Africa Program of the International
Crisis Group.
The P.L.O.’s executive
committee is expected to meet Thursday to discuss how President Mahmoud Abbas
of the Palestinian
Authority should respond.
The P.L.O.’s central
council had called for curtailing security coordination on March 5, part of a
cycle of retaliation between Israel and the Palestinians over the past several
months. It was framed as a response to Israel’s withholding since January of
$127 million a month in taxes it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf.
That, in turn, was
Israel’s way of punishing the Palestinians for joining the International Criminal Court, where they hope
to pursue war crime accusations against Israeli officials. But the decision on
when, or whether, to take such a step was left to Mr. Abbas and the P.L.O.’s
executive committee. Mr. Abbas appeared to be waiting until after Israel’s elections.
If Mr. Abbas does approve
curtailing security coordination, he is likely to move in small steps that
would be reversible, Mr. Abdul Rahman said. One move could perhaps be to refuse
to withdraw Palestinian forces when Israeli troops raid a Palestinian-ruled
area, said a P.L.O. official who spoke anonymously because he was discussing
secret deliberations.
The official said the
Palestinians were studying various United Nations treaties to see which they
might join. They were focusing on what the official described as “technical”
treaties such as on tourism, water and the environment. He did not provide
further details. The official said they were unlikely to take the bolder step
of seeking membership in United Nations organizations because of United States
laws that would cut financing to United Nations bodies that accept Palestine as
a member state.
In a news briefing on
Wednesday, a United Nations spokesman, Farhan Haq, said: “It’s incumbent on the
new Israeli government, once formed, to create the conditions for a negotiated
final peace agreement with the active engagement of the international community
that will end the Israeli occupation and realize the creation of a viable
Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside Israel. This includes
the cessation of illegal settlement-building in the occupied Palestinian
territory.”
Responding to this
statement, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, said, “If the
U.N. is so concerned about the future of the Palestinian people, it should be
asking why President Abbas is in the 10th year of a five-year presidential term
or why Hamas uses the Palestinian people as human shields.”
Palestinians were also
likely to step up lobbying for more European countries to recognize Palestine
as a state. Most countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa already do. “The
battlefield now is Europe,” the P.L.O. official said.
“Whenever we go to Europe
and ask, ‘Why aren’t you recognizing Palestine?’ they say, ‘We will recognize
it when it’s good for the peace process,’ ” he said. “Now you have an
Israeli P.M. who says he doesn’t recognize a Palestinian state.”
Palestinian officials
said they were still weighing whether to try to seek full statehood recognition
from the Security Council. They failed in a previous bid,
in December, for a Council resolution that would have set a deadline to
establish a sovereign Palestinian state. The United States and Australia voted
against it.
Riyadh Mansour, the
Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, said it would make sense only if
the United States “goes along with such an idea,” which is far-fetched, in the
estimation of most diplomats.
There is also the
possibility that, having accomplished his purpose of eking out a victory, Mr.
Netanyahu may now try to reassert his support for a two-state solution, no
matter how tenuous. Yet in light of his statement that “anyone who is going to
establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate lands is giving attack grounds
to the radical Islam against the state of Israel,” analysts said reversing
course would be difficult.
“Having heaped a
rhetorical disavowal of his two-state position on top of all the practical
policies he implemented which undermined the credibility of that position, he’s
now got an awfully long distance to walk that back,” said Daniel Levy, head of
the Middle East program for the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Mr. Levy suggested that
the Palestinians might first test Mr. Netanyahu’s good will toward negotiations
by demanding that he resume transferring the tax revenue to the
Palestinians. “You have to get him to do that, and let’s see what
happens,” he said.
Mr. Abbas has long
preferred negotiations for statehood rather than acting unilaterally.
But even if Mr. Netanyahu
agreed to peace negotiations in principle, it would be difficult for Mr. Abbas
to accept without tangible successes to show Palestinians, like a halt to
building in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank or releasing Palestinian
prisoners in Israeli detention, said Ghassan Khatib, the vice president of
Birzeit University in the West Bank.
After all that has been
said, Mr. Khatib added, “Abbas cannot politically afford negotiations without
any achievement at all.”
Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from the United
Nations, and Steven Erlanger from London.
