The block on Palestinian UN membership represents not a failure of strategy but the lack of one, writes Graham Usher at the United Nations The Palestinians' efforts to win full membership as a UN member state ground to a halt on 11 November after it became clear they didn't have a majority on the Security Council. This leaves Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a snare. He could press for a Security Council vote in any case. But this would face certain defeat and risk anger from supposed allies on the council like France and Britain, as well as reprisals from adversaries like the United States. He could go for the lesser goal of Palestine becoming a non-member observer state: this requires only a majority vote by the 193-member General Assembly and, unlike the Security Council, cannot be blocked by a US veto. But many Palestinians would see this as a "consolation prize" after the hopes raised by full membership, says a Western diplomat. It could also trigger sanctions to add to the nearly $300 million in frozen revenues and contributions levied by Israel and the US as punishment for Abbas turning to the UN. Or he could do nothing. But that would risk the very real charge that -- absent civil protests in the occupied territories and mobilisation in the region -- the PA's turn to the UN represents not a new political strategy but the absence of one. Asked what the Palestinians would do if their bid remains blocked on the council, PA aide Saeb Ereikat said: "We can try again -- and again and again." Faced with the Security Council's indecision, Riad Mansour, Palestine's UN observer, said the Palestinians would consult with Arab leaders on the next step. Abbas is expected to attend the Arab League meeting in Rabat on 16 November. On past performance the League will grant cover to whatever Abbas decides, though it is known that the Gulf states would prefer the PA to take the consolation prize rather than fight and lose on the Security Council. The council's lack of a clear majority surprised no one. The Palestinians had only six sure countries out of 15 backing their bid: Russia, China, Brazil, India, South Africa and Lebanon with (perhaps) Gabon and Nigeria. They had one "powerful country" against them: "whether we have 14 votes in favour or one" the US will "oppose our application", shrugged Mansour. Yet despite strenuous lobbying the PA could not budge European countries on the council like France, Britain, Portugal, Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina to do anything more than abstain, even though, last month, 13 European states, including France, voted in favour of Palestine joining UNESCO "as a member state". Why the caution? European states on the council agreed that Palestine fulfilled the criteria for UN membership. It was only US UN Ambassador Susan Rice who protested that with Hamas ruling Gaza the PA is neither in control of its territory nor "peace-loving" (South Africa reportedly shot back by saying that with Israel in occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem the PA is not in control of any its territory). Nor was there anything except lame European excuses that the bid might hurt a non-existent peace process. This is presently snagged on an unbridgeable rift: Israel refuses any negotiations with preconditions; the PA refuses any negotiations without them, particularly a full settlement freeze and acceptance by Israel that the 1967 armistice line is the basis of a two state solution. Rather, say analysts, the real reason for European hesitancy was fear: fear that by going through with a vote on the Security Council the PA would incur a US veto in defense of Israel and inflame anti-American and anti-Western passions across a Middle East already in ferment. Or -- as one European diplomat admitted �ê" the biggest danger at this time is for "the Israel-Palestinian conflict to become an issue on the Arab street". But that is where it will have to go if the PA wants traction at the UN, say analysts. It is a road Abbas so far has refused to travel. Other than to highlight Abbas's address to the General Assembly in September, there have been no serious moves by the PA to mobilise protests behind the UN bid in the occupied territories, or beyond. Nor has there been any attempt to inscribe the Palestinian national struggle as a central part of the Arab democratic revolutions, despite elections born from them in Tunisia, Egypt and, next year, Libya. Abbas only visited Tunis once the polls had closed. He has made no call on Egypt's political parties -- old or new -- to tie their future foreign policies toward US and Europe to the latter taking concrete steps to end the occupation. And he failed to capitalise on a statement by Egypt's military council that any new government in Cairo would have to renegotiate the peace treaty with Israel, if it wanted to avoid a Mubarak-like complicity with the blockade of Gaza. Abbas's apparent disinterest may persist. Later this month he is expected to meet Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Cairo to help thaw the glacial reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. He may call for an interim PA government of technocrats to replace the present one headed by Salam Fayyad, something Hamas would like. He may call for new PA elections next year, something his people would like but Hamas would not. Palestinians will greet any move that reduces the risk of a 2007-like factional war. But peace between the national authorities in Gaza and West Bank is not the same as a national strategy to challenge Israel's occupation. Neither is a diplomacy that confines the national conflict to the UN in New York rather than returning it to the occupied territories and the capitals, peoples and struggles of the Arab world.
