CAIRO - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas intends to request the UN Security Council to vote on Palestinian membership. If his plan fails, either because he can't get a majority among the 15 member states or because of an American veto, he will refer his request to the UN General Assembly which could upgrade Palestine to non-member status, like that of the Vatican, allowing it to join some international agencies and maybe the International Criminal Court. This might not mean coming a step closer to the independent state of Palestine, but it would surely lead to some changes on the ground. For one thing, the American veto would probably cause a rift in US-Arab relations, while the American-sponsored peace process, that has failed to bear any fruit for the Palestinians since its launch in Madrid in 1991, would also be cancelled. Such a resolution would also enhance the international isolation of Israel that was anxious to resume direct negotiations with the Palestinians for the creation of their state, but not within lands occupied in 1967. Apparently, the Palestinians and indeed all the Arabs won't be fooled by this new trick that will only mean yet more fruitless talks and more Palestinian land disappearing under the Israeli settlements that Netanyahu refuses to stop building, although this would show his good intentions for resuming the peace talks. The Palestinians might not get a state this week, but they will prove to the world that they are worthy of statehood. What is really shameful is this weak stand of the European Union that was once involved in the Quartet that was formed to boost the peace process. Some of the Quartet's biggest members are now siding with Israel and the US, to prevent the Palestinians getting their state. The Palestinians' statehood proposal might be voted down or vetoed by the US at the Security Council, but surely their loss will be far less than that of the big powers, as well as Israel. They have failed to read the new reality being created in the Middle East by the Arab Spring and how this opposition to the Palestinian state could cost them their vital interests in the Arab world.
