Arafat heeft al in 1988 een Palestijnse staat uitgeroepen, maar was toen een roepende in de (Tunesische) woestijn. Ook het Front Polisario heeft in de West-Sahara ooit een eigen staat uitgeroepen, en die is zelfs door tientallen landen erkend. Een beetje staat heeft echter controle nodig over haar grondgebied om internationaal serieus te worden genomen, en dat lijkt voor Abbas moeilijk realiseerbaar zonder medewerking van Israel. Doel van het uitroepen van een staat, of het dreigen daarmee, is uiteraard om de druk op Israel op te voeren om concessies te doen.
Ik kan de gevolgen niet geheel overzien, moet ik toegeven, maar misschien moet Abbas het maar gewoon doen. Twee voordelen kan ik wel verzinnen: bij brede erkenning van die Palestijnse staat wordt het de resterende groot-Israel aanhangers misschien eindelijk duidelijk dat ze hun claims op het hele gebied moeten opgeven. En met het uitroepen van die staat op de 'pre-1967 grenzen' kan Abbas daarna niet weer gaan dreigen op een eenstatenoplossing aan te zullen sturen.
Wouter
_____________
The Jerusalem Post
Israel: PA threat to declare state unilaterally a 'mirage'
By HERB KEINON
10/10/2010 02:05
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=190782
Erekat: If US rejects request, we might take up the issue with UN Security Council; Israeli official: There is no substitute for direct negotiations.
Israeli government officials Saturday night dismissed as "unrealistic" and a "mirage" Palestinian threats to get the US or the UN Security Council to recognize an independent Palestinian state within the pre-1967 lines if the peace talks collapse.
The Palestinian Authority announced over the weekend – following the Arab League meeting in Libya that gave the US a 30-day grace period to get Israel to agree to another settlement construction moratorium – that it was considering "alternatives" in case the peace talks collapsed, including seeking US or UN recognition of an independent Palestinian state.
In Libya on Saturday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas asked Arab leaders to consider alternatives to the negotiations, said Saeb Erekat, a top aide to the Palestinian president.
Erekat said Abbas asked Arab leaders "to press the American administration to recognize an independent Palestinian state within the borders of 1967."
If the Americans reject the request, the Palestinians might take up the issue with the Security Council nonetheless, Erekat said.
Abbas told the summit that he did not expect Israel to budge on the settlement issue, and that in the meantime opposition to continuing the talks is building among the Palestinian people, according to two Arab diplomats.
"We have exhausted all our alternatives," the diplomats quoted Abbas as saying. They spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss information from the closed session.
A PA official in Ramallah said the Arab League supported the idea of seeking US or UN recognition of a Palestinian state.
"The Palestinian leadership will give the US administration another chance to solve the crisis," he said. "If their efforts fail in the next 30 days, we will go to the Americans and the United Nations."
Israeli officials took the threat in stride.
"There is no substitute for direct negotiations and a historic agreement," one official said. "Everything else is a mirage."
The official, who said these types of threats were part of the PA's diplomacy, added that such proposals have not proven serious when raised many times in the past, and that the PA understood that only a negotiated solution could bring peace.
He added that over the past year the Palestinians have alternated threats to go to the UN Security Council searching for recognition of Palestinian statehood, with the threat of abandoning the two-state idea and instead pursuing a "one-state solution."
Although the official refused to speculate on how the US would react if the PA did carry out its threat to get international recognition for statehood, similar proposals in the past have not been embraced by Washington, which consistently has said it wanted to see a negotiated – rather than imposed – settlement.
There is also considerable doubt as to whether a US president could back such a far-reaching proposal that would certainly face huge opposition in both houses of Congress and among large swaths of the American public.
A call in July 2009 by Javier Solana, the previous EU foreign policy chief, for the Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state by a certain deadline if the sides could not reach an agreement on their own, did not gain serious traction in Washington or, for that matter, in many other capitals around the world.
At that time the Foreign Ministry issued a statement rejecting Solana's proposal, saying that UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, as well as the road map peace plan and previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements established that the solution to the conflict could only be reached through negotiations by the sides.
Israel: PA threat to declare state unilaterally a 'mirage'
By HERB KEINON
10/10/2010 02:05
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=190782
Erekat: If US rejects request, we might take up the issue with UN Security Council; Israeli official: There is no substitute for direct negotiations.
Israeli government officials Saturday night dismissed as "unrealistic" and a "mirage" Palestinian threats to get the US or the UN Security Council to recognize an independent Palestinian state within the pre-1967 lines if the peace talks collapse.
The Palestinian Authority announced over the weekend – following the Arab League meeting in Libya that gave the US a 30-day grace period to get Israel to agree to another settlement construction moratorium – that it was considering "alternatives" in case the peace talks collapsed, including seeking US or UN recognition of an independent Palestinian state.
In Libya on Saturday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas asked Arab leaders to consider alternatives to the negotiations, said Saeb Erekat, a top aide to the Palestinian president.
Erekat said Abbas asked Arab leaders "to press the American administration to recognize an independent Palestinian state within the borders of 1967."
If the Americans reject the request, the Palestinians might take up the issue with the Security Council nonetheless, Erekat said.
Abbas told the summit that he did not expect Israel to budge on the settlement issue, and that in the meantime opposition to continuing the talks is building among the Palestinian people, according to two Arab diplomats.
"We have exhausted all our alternatives," the diplomats quoted Abbas as saying. They spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss information from the closed session.
A PA official in Ramallah said the Arab League supported the idea of seeking US or UN recognition of a Palestinian state.
"The Palestinian leadership will give the US administration another chance to solve the crisis," he said. "If their efforts fail in the next 30 days, we will go to the Americans and the United Nations."
Israeli officials took the threat in stride.
"There is no substitute for direct negotiations and a historic agreement," one official said. "Everything else is a mirage."
The official, who said these types of threats were part of the PA's diplomacy, added that such proposals have not proven serious when raised many times in the past, and that the PA understood that only a negotiated solution could bring peace.
He added that over the past year the Palestinians have alternated threats to go to the UN Security Council searching for recognition of Palestinian statehood, with the threat of abandoning the two-state idea and instead pursuing a "one-state solution."
Although the official refused to speculate on how the US would react if the PA did carry out its threat to get international recognition for statehood, similar proposals in the past have not been embraced by Washington, which consistently has said it wanted to see a negotiated – rather than imposed – settlement.
There is also considerable doubt as to whether a US president could back such a far-reaching proposal that would certainly face huge opposition in both houses of Congress and among large swaths of the American public.
A call in July 2009 by Javier Solana, the previous EU foreign policy chief, for the Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state by a certain deadline if the sides could not reach an agreement on their own, did not gain serious traction in Washington or, for that matter, in many other capitals around the world.
At that time the Foreign Ministry issued a statement rejecting Solana's proposal, saying that UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, as well as the road map peace plan and previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements established that the solution to the conflict could only be reached through negotiations by the sides.
Khaled Abu Toameh and AP contributed to this report.
------------------------------------
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MidEastweb http://www.mideastweb.org
Subscribe - mail to mewnews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
MewBkd - Background & analysis -
mail to Mewbkd-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
News Letter - our commentary -
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