South Florida Sun-Sentinel
By Josh Ruebner9:31 a.m. EDT, June 29, 2011
For all intents and purposes, the two-decade-long U.S. “peace process” — premised on privileging Israeli occupation and apartheid at the expense of Palestinian human and national rights — is dead in the water. Is it any wonder that the United States, a country that provides Israel each year with the $3 billion in weapons to oppress Palestinians and that functions as “Israel’s lawyer,” according to former U.S. “peace process” insider Aaron David Miller, has repeatedly failed to broker a just peace?
The jig is up and it is unlikely that the Palestinian political leadership would agree to return to such a rigged U.S. negotiating table. Were Palestinian leaders inclined to do so, it is doubtful that the Palestinian public would stand for it.
Instead, Palestinians appear to be pursuing a diplomatic strategy of going around and not through the United States to achieve their long-denied rights. In February, Palestinians forced the Obama administration to use its first and only veto in the Security Council to prevent the United Nations from condemning Israel’s illegal settlements. By doing so, Palestinians exposed the hypocrisy of the United States shielding Israel from accountability for a policy which even the Obama administration opposes and demonstrated how disconnected the United States is from the rest of the international community on this issue.
Palestinians are now preparing an application for the State of Palestine to become a full member of the UN and engaging in a diplomatic offensive to add to the approximately 120 countries already recognizing Palestinian statehood in advance of this September’s UN General Assembly meeting.
The Obama administration is predictably and unalterably opposed to this initiative. At last month’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference, the president pledged that “No vote at the United Nations will ever create an independent Palestinian state…the United States will stand up against efforts to single Israel out at the United Nations…Israel’s legitimacy is not a matter for debate.”
By equating Palestinian efforts to seek their rights at the UN with the “delegitimization” of Israel and by attempting to subvert this initiative, President Obama is historically, morally, and politically wrong.
Although he may win applause from Israel’s supporters by claiming that the UN cannot vote for Palestinian statehood, President Obama is powerless to change the historical record. The UN already voted for the creation of an independent Palestinian state when it passed General Assembly Resolution 181 in 1947, partitioning historic Palestine into a Jewish state (55 percent of the territory) and an Arab State (45 percent), with Jerusalem as an open, international city. Ironically, this resolution would not have passed without the aggressive U.S. lobbying effort that accompanied it.
Ever since the UN voted to partition Palestine, at a time when Palestinians owned 93 percent of the land and Jews 7 percent, Israel’s ceaseless quest to depopulate, colonize, and annex as much Palestinian land as possible has been the primary factor preventing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Palestinians have waited 64 years since the partition of Palestine to live in freedom on at least a portion of their homeland. By attempting to force Palestinians back to never-ending negotiations with Israel, President Obama is subjecting Palestinian freedom to Israel’s timetable.
The Obama administration is likely to use its second-ever veto this summer in the Security Council in an attempt to prevent the State of Palestine from becoming the newest member of the UN. By doing so, President Obama will only succeed in furthering the irrelevancy of the United States to peacemaking in the Middle East, emptying of content his professed commitment to Arab democracy and freedom, and only delaying the inevitable crumbling of Israeli occupation and apartheid.
Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service.