Washington will likely veto any Palestinian resolution at the UN -- that's why it should be put, writes Graham Usher Arab ambassadors at the United Nations say they intend to submit a resolution to the Security Council condemning Israeli settlements, part of a new Palestinian-led strategy that seeks to build an international coalition to end the occupation and recognise a Palestinian state. The strategy has borne fruit. In the last month seven Latin American countries have recognised Palestine "on the 1967 borders". Norway says it will do the same if there is no meaningful peace process by September, the month when the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) hopes to table a Security Council resolution calling on the world to recognise a Palestinian state. At the UN there are upwards of 100 states willing to co-sponsor the settlements resolution. A source says of the 15 SC members he expects 14 to support the motion, including China, Russia, Brazil, India and South Africa. No other issue that commands a greater international consensus. Yet -- nearly two months after the PLO UN mission began consultations -- it's still not clear when or even if the resolution will be voted on. Much depends on "the reaction of one important member of the SC," says a diplomat. The United States opposes the motion. "New York is not the place to resolve the long- standing conflict and outstanding issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians", said US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, on 10 January. US rejectionism has been steeled by a House of Representatives voice vote last month calling on the president to veto any Palestinian attempt effort to seek international recognition of a state. US diplomats won't discuss the settlements resolution. Domestically on the ropes, the Obama administration clearly fears the wrath of a Republican-controlled Congress far more than the damage a veto would inflict on allies like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Ramallah Palestinian Authority, all of which back the settlements resolution and have called on the US not to obstruct it. "The Americans will veto -- it's 90 per cent sure," says a source. That leaves the PA between two rocks. The turn to the UN has been compelled not only because Israeli colonisation in the occupied territories, especially East Jerusalem, is fast reaching a point of no return. It's also because the UNSC is the only body that could force Israeli compliance now that US has abandoned its call to freeze settlement activities as a condition for negotiations. "We believe the adoption of the SC resolution would send the appropriate message to Israel so that we can go back to negotiations," said Riad Mansour, PLO observer at the UN. However, the Palestinians want "the Americans on board", he says. Those goals are in contradiction. On 16 January the US asked the PLO to withdraw the resolution. Saeb Ereikat -- chief Palestinian negotiator -- refused: "we will not come near concessions that are devoid of dignity," he said. Many Palestinians welcome the refusal. Polls show most against a bilateral process under exclusive US tutelage that in the last 20 years has made "the occupied territories a semi- permanent Israeli domain", says Palestinian analyst Rashid Khalidi. The return to international fora like the UNSC would not reverse this reality. But it would recast the Palestinian issue as a national liberation struggle against occupation on the bases of international law and UN resolutions (rather, as is current, as a dialogue between Tel Aviv and Washington over Israel's security needs). It would also bolster efforts at Palestinian national reconciliation, since no power (aside from Israel) has been more inimical to Hamas- Fatah rapprochement than Washington. Finally UNSC resolutions -- because they carry the force of international law -- would help parliaments, civic organisations and individuals sanction Israel for its settlement policies. "By moving from the bilateral approach... to a multilateral approach that allows the international community to take up its responsibility of ending the occupation, perhaps Palestinians will achieve their freedom," hopes Ghassan Khatib, a former PA spokesman. The decision to table a UNSC resolution on settlements suggests "internationalisation" is now the PLO's strategy. Yet the Palestinians hankering after American support also implies they seek less the end of US tutelage than an effort to revive it: grandstanding on unilateralism to persuade Obama to submit new "parameters" for a peace process. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has alluded to such a tactic in the past. He should be careful what he wishes for. Two years into Obama's term it's clear he will submit no "parameter" that has not been cleared with the Netanyahu government. And Netanyahu's parameters are known: no Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem; a blockade on Gaza; and an interim arrangement in the West Bank of indefinite duration. Such an "end-state" will do nothing to alter the balance of power in the occupied territories. It will only deepen and perpetuate Israel's rule. An internationalist approach -- backed by popular protest and sanctions -- would, slightly, tilt the balance back in favour of a people struggling against an illegal occupation and the immense national and international forces that support them. But for that strategy to be taken seriously "the Palestinians must make themselves independent of that power which is the main prop of Israel and its occupation," says Khalidi. Independence is a hard road. Few polities are as dependent on American political, economic and military beneficence as the Ramallah Palestinian Authority. But incurring a US veto -- and exposing which is the real rejectionist in the Arab-Israeli conflict -- would be a good place to start.
