Filibuster CartoonsTitle: How to fix everything (click to view)
Date: September 24, 2011
This Monday, the Security Council of the United Nations will hold a vote to decide whether or not they recognize the State of Palestine as the world's 194th sovereign country. If they do, the Palestinians would immediately be afforded full membership rights in the UN, including, perhaps, someday a seat on that very same Security Council.
The fact that the Palestinians are not already members of the UN might come as something of a surprise. After all, the Palestinian presidents sure seem to give a lot of speeches there, starting with Yasser Arafat's famous pistol-packin' one in 1974. That was the year the Arab League resolved to recognize Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organization as the legitimate government of the Palestinian people, and the year before the UN General Assembly voted to accept the same, and grant the Palestinians full "observer" status within the organization.
This was before "Palestine" was even a settled concept. It wasn't until 1988 that Mr. Arafat would profess proper nationalist ambitious, issuing a
press release from his secret hideout in Algeria hereby proclaiming "the establishment of the State of Palestine on our Palestinian territory" — ie, the West Bank and Gaza — "with its capital Jerusalem." It was pretty gutsy to declare rulership over an area you didn't even have any permanent office space in, but over half the world's countries immediately rushed to recognize the country-in-exile anyway. China has a nice Palestinian embassy. So does Russia, India, and most of the countries in Eastern Europe and Africa.
More nations got on board following the Olso peace accords of 1993, in which Prime Minister Rabin shook Arafat's hand and agreed to recognize the legitimacy of Palestinian self-government on the previously proclaimed lands of Palestine — though not the concept of Palestine itself. This heralded in a new and exciting phase of guilt-free recognition amongst the world's non-embassy having countries. Now everyone could get a Palestinian ambassador, providing he was willing to just represent a government, not a country. It was a very clever compromise.
The
Palestinian mission at the UN has grown larger and larger since the 1970s, befitting its increased role as an international power player. In 1998 its rights were upgraded to the full status of a "non-member state," just like the Vatican, another place large chunks of the world already recognize as a sovereign country. The Palestinians can't vote on UN General Assembly motions, but they can co-sponsor resolutions and participate in committees. And, of course, give lots of speeches.
The point is, in the year 2011 the Palestinians are pretty integrated members of the international community. The question of recognizing Palestinian independence is not a new one; most countries have given a clear answer one way or another by now, just as more than a few nations have made their refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli state just as clear. This current drive from the Palestinian government to secure a Security Council resolution recognizing their statehood is thus quite clearly little more than a PR move of the worst sort. A gross caricature of everything UN-bashers love to hate, it represents an effort to impose a top-down, one-size-fits-all, globalist "solution" to a contentions matter the nations of the world have proven themselves particularly good at handling through the tools of their own domestic sovereignty.
It is, in other words, a resolution that seeks to solve a non-problem. The fact that the Palestinians want an independent, self-governing country free of Israeli house-builders and army commandos has precious little to do with the status they hold at the UN. Pretty much every country in the world supports this goal already, even if they can't quite agree how they want to communicate with the Palestinian government in the meantime.
President Abbas can perhaps be excused for engaging in this sort of stunt politics. His term as Palestinian leader is coming to an end, and I can forgive him for wanting to conclude his otherwise lame presidency with a bit of a bang. Much less forgivable are the actions of the governments of Russia, China, India, and Brazil, however, who have all pledged to support the Security Council resolution Monday. At a time when all of these nations are trying to ditch their flaky pasts and embrace new identities as thoroughly modern, mature, superpowers-in-waiting, it really comes off as quite childish and small-minded that they would back a motion that serves no purpose other than the rhetorical. And what kind of rhetoric, even? Knee-jerk opposition to things Israel and America wants? Unilateralism over negotiation? Solving problems by declaring them to be solved, rather than actually solving them?
In 1974, the same year Arafat gave his maiden speech to the body, the United Nations General Assembly voted to expel the Republic of South Africa from its membership, as punishment for its racist domestic policies. That unprecedented gesture accomplished almost nothing of substance. The odious apartheid regime remained as unyielding as ever, and the countries that still cared to have a working relationship with it, continued to. It would take another 20 years before segregation was dismantled and multicultural democracy permitted, and both goals were only achieved through a long, arduous, and frequently hopeless slog of white-back negotiations and compromise.
Supporting the idea that the Israelis and Palestinians should continue their present slog doesn't have to presume a loyalty to either side, but it is an admission that a hard-fought peace will ultimately be more productive and useful for all involved than a hollow, symbolic one. But a hollow institution can only produce hollow results, and the UN is looking very hollow indeed these days.
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