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Palestinians, Israelis Rally in West Bank Ahead of Abbas UN Bid


Palestinians march through Manara Square in central Ramallah passing a symbolic wooden chair erected to represent the UN seat they aspire, September 22, 2011
Palestinians march through Manara Square in central Ramallah passing a symbolic wooden chair erected to represent the UN seat they aspire, September 22, 2011

Palestinian Statehood Bid Breakdown

  • The Process

  • Palestinians say they are seeking U.N. recognition after years of negotiations with Israel failed to deliver an independent state.
  • It is not clear if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will seek U.N. Security Council approval of U.N. member status for an independent Palestine, or instead seek "non-member status" within the world body.
  • The mechanism for recognizing statehood at the United Nations is specific.
  • First, a resolution declaring a State of Palestine as a full U.N. member is introduced. Then the resolution is sent to the Security Council, which studies it and takes a vote on sending the measure to the full General Assembly. It takes two thirds of the U.N.'s membership to approve voting-state status.
  • Achieving non-member status requires only a simple majority vote in the 193-member General Assembly. Palestinians currently hold observer status at the world body.
  • Non-voting U.N. membership would provide Palestinians with a status upgrade that would allow them to petition U.N. committees and entities such as the International Court of Justice.

    Why the Palestinian bid?

  • President Abbas backed out of U.S.-led peace talks last year in protest against Israel's decision to end a freeze in settlement building on land the Palestinians want for a future state. Palestinians say because the peace process has failed, they will unilaterally seek to establish a state. Abbas said the Palestinians are the only people in the world who remain under occupation.

    Why the Israelis oppose the move?

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Palestinians' plan to seek statehood recognition at the United Nations is "futile," and that only direct negotiations can lead to a peace agreement.
  • Netanyahu has accused the Palestinians of "consistently evading" negotiations. He called on the Palestinian Authority "to abandon unilateral steps" and said it would then "find Israel to be a genuine partner" for peace.
  • Israel leaders say that by bypassing talks and going to the U.N., the Palestinians are violating previous agreements, and that could result in Israeli sanctions.

    Why the U.S. promises to veto?

  • The Obama administration opposes the Palestinian move and says it will not help to bring Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiating table. President Obama has called the proposal a "distraction" to attaining Mideast peace that he says can only be addressed through negotiations.
  • The U.S., one of five veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, says it will veto a Palestinian membership bid in the Council if it comes to a vote.

Thousands of Palestinians gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah Wednesday to show support of their leadership’s upcoming bid for full U.N. recognition.

The crowd marched from the grave of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to the center of town, through Manara Square. Centered in the plaza was a giant-sized blue wooden chair symbolizing the the U.N. seat Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to start seeking Friday.

Pro-statehood show of support

“We are here to support our country and our state,” said Reem Saleh, a project manager from Ramallah, waving a flag on the edge of the square drowned in a sea of hundreds of red, white, green and black Palestinian flags.

“This is important for our kids, for our future. To have independence, economics, everything,” shouted Saleh over music coming from a stage filled with dancers across the square.

“We are here to get back our hope after 20 years of useless negotiations and 18 years of failing Oslo [Accords],” said Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestine National Initiative, also present at the rally. “Time has come for Palestine to be free.”

Barghouthi said the gathering shows not only support of the U.N., bid but also solidarity among all Palestinians. Should the U.S. use its veto to block the Palestinian bid, he added, not just Palestinians, but people across the region will question America’s motives.

“They claim they support democracy and freedom in Libya, Syria and Egypt. Why not for Palestine?” asked Barghouthi. “A year ago, in the United Nations, Obama said Palestine should be become a full member by September this year. Now, he’s not only taking it back, but he’s using a veto against what he said.”

In recent weeks, the Palestinian Authority has intensified a media campaign for their U.N. bid, including billboards, flags, t-shirts and the symbolic wooden chair. Many of the items bear the number 194, a reference to a U.N. resolution from December of 1948 that calls for peace among the then-warring nations, Israel’s withdrawal from occupied territories and the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes. The number also symbolizes that Palestine, if accepted, would become the 194th member country of the U.N.

Some dissenting voices

But not all Palestinians are rallying for statehood now. Seventeen-year-old Jamal AbuKhater, a student and blogger, is possibly one of the U.N. bid’s youngest critics. He tweeted live from the protest. “Flags are being distributed...bottles being distributed...all this for a fake Bantustan,” he tweeted, using the word for land that was set aside for black South Africans that is sometimes used in reference to the Palestinian territories. Although too young to vote, AbuKhater has been vocal online, criticizing what he calls the Palestinian Authority’s quest to establish a “Sovereign Bantustan.”

AbuKhater represents a less outspoken group that opposes Abbas’s bid. “Our struggle is not a struggle for symbolic statehood;” he writes in a blog post, “it is a struggle to gain Palestinians’ basic rights.”

Israeli settlers’ message

Settler youth from the settlement of Itamar in the West Bank march down a highway to demonstrate their ownership of the land, September 21, 2011
Settler youth from the settlement of Itamar in the West Bank march down a highway to demonstrate their ownership of the land, September 21, 2011

Palestinians are not the only ones who have organized to make their positions known. The last weeks have seen an increase in activity by Israeli settlers, who on Tuesday marched through the West Bank to advocate for their territorial claim.

From the settlement of Itamar - made famous earlier this year when five members of the Fogel family were killed in their home - around 200 settlers gathered, some dancing to music and waving Israeli flags.

“I’m here to walk on my land,” said Leah Goldsmith, a resident of Itamar and native of New York City. “It’s just telling the world, ‘Hey, we live here. We exist.’ While on the other side of the world in New York now people are deciding about this land, we’re saying, ‘Hello, here we are’.”

Some said the rally was more of a pre-emptive move.

“[The settlers] are reacting against all threats. Threats from the U.N, threats from the U.S., threats from the Israeli government,” said Ira Sharkansky, a professor of political science at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. Sharkansky added that settlers are scared and reacting to fears that the Palestinian statehood bid will be successful, even though Sharkansky dismisses it as improbable.

But settlers, such as the ones in Itamar, are considered an extremist element by many in Israel and are not representative of Israeli society, cautioned Sharkansky. “They are troublemakers.”

But it’s also this segment of Israeli society that has a lot at stake in the outcome of U.N. deliberations on the Palestinian issue. For them, the question boils down to who will have authority over land they now consider theirs.

Goldsmith reasserts her claim about her settlement: “Itamar is only an hour from any place. It’s an hour from the airport, and hour from Jerusalem and an hour from Tel Aviv. It’s not some far away fairyland they make up - the West Bank. No, it’s the heart of Israel and it’s time for the world to realize it.”

Despite the attention the U.N. bid has drawn, many on both sides say a successful bid won’t result in drastic changes here.

“We understand that a vote [in New York] will not liberate us,” says Barghouthi of the potential of Palestinian success. “Liberty will be made here.”

And Sharkansky has a similar belief that U.N. General Assembly support will mean little. “Unless that causes the Palestinians to act violently, then we will all be in deep trouble because that will cause Israel to react violently,” he said, adding that, so far, Palestinian leaders have worked to keep things under control. “That’s the risk we face this weekend.”

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