42 Days to Go – What State Can the UN Approve?

By Sherwin Pomerantz

With 42 days to go to the opening of the UN General Assembly and the vote on Palestinian statehood it is now more important than ever to let the UN delegates know saying YES would be a big mistake.

Steven Rosen in Foreign Policy magazine writes an analysis of the Palestinian state that the leadership there is attempting to get the General Assembly to approve that is the best I’ve seen on why this should not happen.

In a piece entitled The Palestinians' Imaginary State, Rosen poses the question: Which Palestinian State? He posits:

"Of the three Palestinian states the assembly could recognize, two are real and arguably could meet the requirements for statehood. But it is the third, purely imaginary one that the assembly will endorse, one that neither has a functioning government nor meets the requirements of international law. Both the Hamas-controlled Palestinian entity in Gaza and the rival Fatah-governed Palestinian entity in the West Bank can be said to meet all four of the criteria of the law of statehood. The one on which the United Nations will vote does not."

He makes a good argument when he says:

"Unlike the two Palestinian entities that already exist, either of which could be recognized as a Palestinian state because they seem to fulfill the legal requirements, the Palestinian entity that a General Assembly majority will recognize as a state this September does not actually exist on Earth. It is imaginary and aspirational, not real. And it does not meet the legal requirements."

His case is strengthened by the fact that Mahmoud Abbas, who claims to be the president of the Palestine that is pressing the claim in the U.N. General Assembly, is not considered to be the president anymore by Hamas, the largest political party in the putative state. Elected in 2005 to serve until January 2009, his term expired, even though he unilaterally extended it.

This putative state of "Palestine" also has a legislature that never meets. Elected on Jan. 25, 2006, for a term of four years, the PLC has enacted no laws, passed on no ministers, and conducted no meetings since 2007. It is common for Palestinian observers and their supporters in the West to attribute the PLC's inaction to the fact that Israel arrested 21 of its more radical members in June 2006 after the abduction of Gilad Shalit, most of who are still in detention. The Carter Center, for example, states, "With most of its representatives in Israeli prisons, the Palestinian Legislative Council never assembled the required quorum for meetings and hence was unable to carry out legislative functions designated to the PLC." But the PLC has 132 members, of whom fewer than 20 are detained by Israel, and a quorum of the PLC requires only one more than half the members -- 67 -- to be present. So it is not Israel that is preventing a quorum.

In a word if the General Assembly votes yes it will create an imaginary state that has two incompatible presidents, two rival prime ministers, a constitution whose most central provisions are violated by both sides, no functioning legislature, no ability to hold elections, a population mostly not under its control, borders that would annex territory under the control of other powers, and no clear path to resolve any of these conflicts. It is a resolution that plants the seeds for civil and international wars, not one that advances peace.

Of course, should the U.S. exercises its veto on this issue in the Security Council, Abbas can consort with Rostam Ghasemi, who on Wednesday became Iran’s oil minister and is now the new head of OPEC. Abbas would find a friend in this head of the world’s oil cartel who is not only from US-hating Iran but who has also been sanctioned by the U.S., the E.U. and Australia and has had his assets blacklisted. If you are wondering how this can happen, according to OPEC rules the leadership rotates among the countries and it is now in the hands of Iran whose oil minister is automatically the president of the oil cartel.

Is there any logic left at all in international relations? One can certainly have his doubt, that’s for sure.

George Washington said “There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an allusion which experience must cure.” As true, now as it was then. The pressure on the UN delegates must be kept up.