While the Palestinian leadership is still committed to seeking UN recognition of a Palestinian state in September, Mahmoud Abbas says he is open to other "constructive proposals", writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah The Palestinian Authority (PA) has decided "in principle" to ask the UN General Assembly to recognise a putative Palestinian state covering the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Following a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee in Ramallah on Sunday, 26 June, a statement read by committee secretary Yasser Abed Rabbo said the situation stemmed from the desire of the Palestinian people to achieve a just and comprehensive peace where the "state of Palestine" lives independently in peace and security with its neighbours. However, the decision doesn't seem to be absolute and irreversible. PA President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian leadership might reconsider the decision if the international community offered the Palestinians a genuine guarantee that the Israeli occupation would end. Abbas said the PA remained receptive to "any constructive proposals" pertaining to peace negotiations with Israel. However, the Palestinian leader pointed out that as of now there have been no such proposals, suggesting that the PA was going to the UN out of desperation and frustration at Israel's intransigence, rejectionism and stonewalling. This frustration was further voiced by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad who said during a tour of the northern West Bank that, "either we achieve freedom from the Israeli occupation or we will demand instant Israeli citizenship, including the right to vote." The Obama administration and Israel strongly oppose "unilateral Palestinian steps", ignoring the fact that Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, which is illegal according to international law, is an extreme and brazen form of Israeli unilateralism. And this is just one example of unilateral Israeli behaviour vis-�-vis the occupied territories. The US has vowed to thwart PA efforts at the UN and other international bodies, especially if these efforts reach the UN Security Council. More convulsive reactions came from Israel which threatened to take "unprecedented retaliatory measures" if the Palestinians dared act against Israel's will. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's fanatical foreign minister, said Israel could go as far as ending the PA government or suffocating it financially if the PA continued to behave unilaterally. Lieberman, who is widely shunned in the international arena due to his racist discourse, was due to visit Croatia, Albania and Austria in an effort to enlist support for the Israeli position. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is also planning to visit several states in Eastern Europe for the same purpose. The Israeli press reported that the Israeli premier hoped to mobilise as many as 60 countries �ê" or what it called "a moral minority�--ê" in support of the Israeli stance. The PA, too, is doing its homework. PA officials have been meeting European diplomats, trying to convince them that recognition by the UN General Assembly would eventually help, not hinder, the cause of peace. The PA also made it clear to the Quartet, which includes the US, the UN, the EU and Russia, that it would agree to resume peace talks with Israel if its four official demands were met. Among these demands is a complete cessation of Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Second, the PA has demanded that the Quartet immediately recognise a Palestinian state and agree that the 1967 armistice lines be the basis for border demarcations between Israel and a future Palestinian state, with mutually agreed-upon land swaps. Israel has always rejected a return to 1967 lines, arguing that they are "indefensible", an argument dismissed by many observers as disingenuous. Moreover, the PA is meticulously studying the ramifications and implications resulting from the prospective Palestinian move at the UN in September. PA economic official Mohamed Shtayyeh was quoted as saying that the PA would decide soon to replace the Israeli currency, the shekel, with the US dollar as the main currency in circulation in the occupied Palestinian territories. Shtayyeh said there were as many 2.8 billion shekels in circulation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which he said would have to be converted to US dollars. He added, however, that a final decision had not been taken and that the matter was being studied at the highest levels. According to insiders within the immediate coteries around Abbas, the PA leadership has decided to go the UN General Assembly as the choice of last resort. "If we go to the UN Security Council, the US will veto any pro-Palestinian resolution; and if we go to the International Court of Justice, we will receive an advisory opinion, nothing more. So we are left with the UN General Assembly whose possible recognition of a Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 lines would immensely advance our national cause and isolate Israel," said former PLO negotiator Saeb Ereikat. Meanwhile, it seems the Palestinian leadership has decided to put the reconciliation process with Hamas "on hold" for the time being. Some PLO officials have suggested that pursuing reconciliation with Hamas at this time could harm Palestinian efforts to gain UN recognition and that the reconciliation process would be completed sooner or later.
