Would United Nations recognition really change anything on the ground in Palestine?

Mahmoud Abbas: Wiki Commons

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

For most of my readers it is probably clear by now that I am a defender of the human rights of Palestinians and a vocal opponent of American funds being exported to Israel while record numbers of people at home are homeless, jobless and hungry.

However, the Palestinian Authority’s push for recognition as a sovereign state by the United Nations raises some questions. Is it really going to do anything? Is it going to stop Israel from bombing Palestine and subjugating the people on the other side of the apartheid wall?

Some apparently think so and are trying to do something about it, especially within the Obama regime in Washington.

The New York Times revealed earlier today that the Obama administration has been attempting to renew talks between Israelis and the Palestinian Authority in an attempt to get Mahmoud Abbas to abandon the bid for United Nations recognition.

Apparently it has been made exceedingly clear to Abbas that if they move forward with their request, it will be vetoed once it reaches the United Nations Security Council.

Essentially the United States has told Abbas that his attempts are futile and that he should give up now. If indeed these guarantees are held, Abbas and the PA are just wasting time while Israel continues to settle illegally, disproportionately retaliate against attacks, and antagonize Iran.

Does anyone in the PA or Abbas himself actually believe that the United States (the government of which is unarguably beholden to Israeli interests as I have shown in the past) will allow Palestine to be recognized by the UN?

Even more importantly, would the UN recognition do anything for the suffering of the people of Palestine on the ground? Would this result in Israel actually recognizing the legitimacy of international human rights law and in doing so lift the blockade on Gaza and end the collective punishment of Palestinians?

Personally, I find it extremely unlikely that a shiny new title will suddenly change Israeli policy towards Palestine.

However, if the Palestinians were able to gain statehood under the United Nations, it could them to go after charges against the state of Israel at the International Criminal Court, or ICC.

Then again the ICC is an absolute sham with zero legitimacy and one would have to be a bit far gone to assume that they would actually pursue charges against Israel.

Sure, they could carry out some kind of ceremonial effort like the recent Palmer Report that investigated the murder of Turkish activists on a flotilla to Gaza last year. But like the Palmer Report, it is probable that whatever the ICC carried out would not result in any actual changes and would just inflame tensions in the region as the Palmer Report did with Israeli-Turkish relations.

We need to start being more pragmatic and realistic when it comes to this issue. The United Nations is by no means, at least in my opinion, a legitimate, trustworthy or fair organization. Nor are any of the allied agencies, groups and organizations.

The recognition of a Palestinian state in the United Nations is not some magic bullet that will suddenly allow the countless Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. The state of Israel will not suddenly stop their illegal settlements or their inhumane treatment of Palestinians and Arab peoples in general.

Furthermore, the United States will not suddenly abandon the state of Israel and start treating Palestinians and other Arabs with the dignity and respect they deserve.

Based on the American role as mediator in the complete failure that are the peace talks between Israel and Palestine, can we really assume that if the United States allowed Palestine to be recognized American foreign policy would change?

No, I think this assumption is wholly ignorant, far too idealistic and detached from reality.
As an article by the Pakistani new organization The Express Tribune in association with the International Herald Tribune written by Gloria Caleb and published yesterday aptly points out,

The US insistence on a mediatory role between the two parties is inconsistent with its policies in the Middle East which are hostile to Arabs. Armed intervention in the name of democracy in Iraq and support to the Western-backed Libyan rebels makes Palestinians understandably wary of the prospect of Americans being interlocutors in negotiations with Israel.

Palestinians generally view the move for UN-sanctioned statehood as a desperate move by the PA president as a safeguard against a popular uprising similar to the Arab Spring.

I find Caleb’s argument to be compelling, especially when one takes into account the fact that the PA sits by silently allowing Palestinian civilians to be murdered by Israelis while allowing top Members of Parliament like Sheikh Hassan Yousef to be kidnapped by the IDF.

The Palestinian Authority is only regarded with a high amount of legitimacy by foreign nations, the people of Palestine have been regularly backstabbed and betrayed by the PA throughout the years and this looks like it could be just another instance of PA malfeasance.

The PA, in my mind, is completely illegitimate. It is pretty easy to show why this is the case: they are an anti-democratic, unaccountable body that receives huge amounts of funding from the European Union and other interests and has been unsuccessfully representing the Palestinian people on an international level for years.

Let’s remember an important fact, the Palestinian Authority or Palestinian National Authority was not chosen and erected by the people of Palestine. Quite the contrary, they were created by the Oslo Accords in 1994 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO.

Personally, I wouldn’t give legitimacy to a regime that was not established by the people they purport to represent but instead by foreign nations in an international diplomatic setting.

Let us not forget that when an actual democratic election was held in 2006 and Hamas won, the so-called “Quartet” of the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations cut funding.

While the sanctions only lasted from 2006 to 2007, in 2007 Israel put in place the arguably harsher blockade on Gaza which remains in place and was supported by the recent United Nations Palmer Report.

Clearly, Israel and the Quartet have no interest in allowing the people of Palestine to freely govern their own nation. When any actual democratic movement takes place in Palestine, it is quickly painted in a dark light and swift economic sanction follow as seen with the rise of Hamas.

Even the Israelis are making it clear now that the PA’s insistence on UN recognition will not change anything on the ground. The Israeli Knesset has also said that it could lead to a new outbreak of violence.

Please do not misunderstand me; I believe Palestine has every right to be a sovereign state with all of the trappings of UN membership if that is indeed what the Palestinian people want.

I also support the right of the people of Palestine to determine their own affairs, determine who they want to represent them and thus I think the fact that only the PA is allowed to participate in negotiations is an affront to the rights of the people of Palestine.

But we have to realize that the Palestinian Authority was not chosen by the people of Palestine to represent them in the international community. Furthermore, we must take notice of the rhetoric that surrounds the PA compared to Hamas.

Take, for instance, the three possible scenarios surrounding the Palestinian bid for UN statehood through the PA.

In an article by Mark Weiss in the Irish Times, these three scenarios are outlined but pay attention to the rhetorical flair applied to the description,

Israeli security officials predicted three possible scenarios: non-violent mass protests controlled by the Palestinian Authority; wider clashes accompanied by Hamas terrorist attacks in the West Bank and the release of militants from Palestinian prisons; and finally, a massive escalation which may involve attacks on Jewish settlements and a renewed wave of terrorist attacks in the West Bank and inside Israel, accompanied by massive rocket fire from Gaza deep into Israel.

Here we see that the PA is attributed with the possibility of non-violent mass protests while no other organization is. Apparently there isn’t a single organization in Palestine that is interested in the peace and safety of the Palestinian people other than the PA.

Give me a break! Contrary to what so much of the Zionist media would have you believe, the people of Palestine are not imbeciles. They realize that for every violent act they carry out on Israelis, they will receive it back ten-fold at least.

We must also note that a violent protest according to the IDF is a protest in which children throw stones at IDF tanks. Therefore, appropriate responses are usually tear gas or live fire ammunition, according to the Israel Defense Force’s warped thinking. I seriously doubt that Palestinians interested in a sovereign state would like to watch their friends and family die at the hands of the IDF who will undoubtedly remain unaccountable in the international arena.

Of course the other two options are tied to Hamas and are terrorism related. Let’s ignore all of the peaceful rallies that Hamas has carried out in Palestine as that would just be a little too inconvenient when we’re pretending that anyone who supports Hamas and the right of Palestinians to have a democratically elected government is a bloodthirsty terrorist psychopath.

Israel, like the United States, is now making it painfully clear that while this is clearly just an attempt for the PA to maintain what shred of legitimacy they might have with their own people, recognition in the United Nations would bring even more suffering upon the people of Palestine.

The above linked Irish Times article by Weiss also notes,

Israel, which argued that a Palestinian state can only come about as a result of bilateral negotiations, has warned that recognition of Palestinian statehood will lead to the derailment of final status peace talks for many years.

This is the kind of tragically misguided and fallacious logic that has brought this stalemate about.
Israel is an invading and occupying force. Under international law, it is a simple fact that every bit of territory seized by Israel during and after the 1967 war is illegally held and not rightfully theirs.

Yet, Israel is pretending that they have the right to dictate the terms of negotiation? Israel will not even recognize the fact that they murdered nine Turkish activists seeking to bring medical supplies and food to the Gaza Strip. Who in their right mind thinks that Israel has the ability to rationally participate in peace talks?

The fact is that the state of Israel, as it is now outlined, is illegitimate, illegal and supported by constant acts of terrorism against the people of Palestine.

We must stop giving Israel the false sense of superiority that allows them to demand “bilateral” negotiations when they are an occupying force of warmongers and colonialists. They have no right to dictate the terms of negotiation, nor do they have any right to tell the people of Palestine what they can and cannot do at the international level.

So, finally, do I think that Palestinian statehood under the United Nations would suddenly stop Israel from treating the Palestinians as they have for over 50 years? No. Do I think that anything would change on the ground if this were to happen? No, and if anything I think it could get worse.

Instead of fighting for recognition by the United Nations, an illegitimate warmongering group of unaccountable non-democratic globalists who think they have the right to tell anyone and everyone how to live, we should be fighting for a real government in Palestine chosen by the people.

Once such a democratically elected government is in place, the international community should push for recognition as a sovereign state outside of any bilateral talks with the occupying Israeli forces.

Until then it will be purely ceremonial and the systematic dehumanization and human rights abuses will continue.

What do you think the international community can do to help the plight of the Palestinian people? Feel free to send me your ideas, comments, suggestions for future articles and especially your dissenting opinions to [email protected]

For more information on the Palestinian Authority, check out this 2004 report entitled The Chaos of the Corruption: Challenges for the Improvement of the Palestinian Society.