The InterDependent

[This article was updated on Feb. 23]

The long search for an international agreement that can end violence in the Middle East is returning to the United Nations after the collapse of President Obama’s push for a quick peace deal through direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

With those talks derailed for now, the Palestinians are lobbying both the Security Council and the General Assembly to intervene and to help them achieve the elusive goal of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders. Their goal is to stiffen US resolve and heap international pressure on Israel.

The Palestinian campaign, supported by most UN members but not the United States and Israel, is expected to unroll over the next eight months. It began in the 15-nation Security Council on Feb. 18 when Lebanon, acting on behalf of Arab nations at the Palestinians’ request, put forward a draft resolution pressing Israel to immediately freeze all settlement activity in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. The draft also called for a final peace deal by September 2011, when the General Assembly starts its new session.

Mark Garten/UN Photo

Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of Palestine to the United Nations since 2005, at a Palestinian rights committee session in January.

Washington invoked its veto, killing the resolution, although the 14 other council members voted for it. In all, the draft had been co-sponsored by more than 120 of the 192 UN member countries.

After casting the veto, US Ambassador Susan Rice said that her vote should not be seen as support for Israeli settlement activity, which she noted "violates Israel's international commitments, devastates trust between the parties, and threatens the prospects for peace."

"Unfortunately, this draft resolution risks hardening the positions of both sides," Rice said. "It could encourage the parties to stay out of negotiations and, if and when they did resume, to return to the Security Council whenever they reach an impasse."

Israeli Ambassador Meron Reuben told the council that the resolution "should never have been submitted."

"Instead, the international community and the Security Council should have called upon the Palestinian leadership, in a clear and resolute voice, to immediately return to the negotiating table," Reuben said. But Riyad Mansour, the permanent observer of Palestine to the UN, said that he feared that the veto would only encourage "further Israeli intransigence and impunity."

Washington insists that peace can emerge only from negotiations between the parties and cannot be imposed from the UN. And with Obama's initiative stalled, his administration also fears what could come next: a second draft resolution declaring the council's endorsement of Palestinian statehood, followed by a General Assembly resolution embracing Palestine as a full UN member.

Both the Jewish state and Washington, its closest ally, oppose a UN role in the peace process right now.

"We're working to keep the focus where we think it needs to be, and that's not in New York," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Jan. 20, speaking of the draft resolution on settlements.

The outlook for negotiations, however, remains highly uncertain. For one, Palestinian leadership remains divided, with the Palestinian Authority in charge of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Hamas -- which has so far refused to participate in the peace process -- running Gaza.

In addition, a huge recent leak of internal Palestinian documents has made future Palestinian concessions more difficult. The documents embarrassed Palestinian negotiators by disclosing that they had, for example, offered Israel the chance to hold onto large chunks of its East Jerusalem settlements and had greatly reduced the number of Palestinians they wanted Israel to allow to return to their former homes once a peace accord was in place.

Unrest in neighboring Egypt, a crucial regional player, is also complicating Middle East diplomacy. Israelis, Palestinians and Americans all wonder how the new Egyptian government might alter the landscape.

IMPASSE ON SETTLEMENT BLOCKS TALKS

Obama had brought the Palestinians and Israelis together in September for their first direct talks in nearly two years. But the discussions stopped within weeks after a voluntary 10-month freeze on Israeli settlement activity ran out and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to renew it, despite Washington’s pleas.

While Israel defends its West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements, the international community has long opposed them, notably in the “road map” to peace put forward in 2002 by the so-called “quartet” of Middle East mediators: the UN, US, European Union and Russia. Diplomats say their expansion creates a constantly changing “reality on the ground” in Israel's favor at a time when the two sides are meant to be fixing their borders.

“Settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law, contravene the ‘road map’ obligations of Israel, undermine confidence, prejudge the outcome of the permanent status negotiations and hamper efforts at bringing the parties back to the negotiating table,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in New York on Jan. 21.

The Palestinians say that Israeli intransigence on the settlements obliged them to turn to the UN. They also hope to pressure Washington to be tougher with Israel.

The Palestinians, now merely "observers" at the UN, could turn up the heat on Israel and the US by unilaterally declaring statehood and seeking full UN membership. But Article 4 of the UN Charter says that the General Assembly can approve new members only "upon the recommendation of the Security Council."

So the US could use its council veto power a second time to block Palestinian membership, even though it has no veto in the assembly.

But this could be deeply embarrassing for Washington because President Obama himself expressed hope last fall that a peace deal would be ready when the assembly opens its next session, in September 2011.

"When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations -- an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel," he said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in November that he took those words "to be a commitment by President Obama, not just a slogan, and we hope that next year he won't say to us, 'We apologise, we can't.' "

Adding weight to Obama's words were similar statements issued at the same time by the quartet of Middle East mediators and the World Bank.

"If the Palestinian Authority maintains its current performance in institution-building and delivery of public services, it is well positioned for the establishment of a state at any point in the near future," a World Bank report said. A quartet statement commended the Palestinians' "significant progress" in preparing for statehood by September 2011.

Unicef

A one-room home in Gaza, inhabited by a family of seven. Palestinians are campaigning hard for statehood in the UN.

A more recent statement from the group, issued Feb. 5, reiterated the quartet's support for a negotiated peace deal by the fall and expressed regret over Israel's decision to let its freeze on settlement activity lapse. While it made no specific mention of the Palestinian initiatives at the UN, the statement warned that "unilateral actions by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community."

STATEHOOD IN PLACE OF UN MEMBERSHIP?

Despite the quartet’s warning and Washington’s veto power in the Security Council, the Palestinians would still have a symbolic way forward at the UN. They could ask the General Assembly to adopt a resolution declaring Palestinian statehood even if that fell short of UN membership.

With that in mind, the Palestinians have been quietly encouraging governments to issue statements supporting Palestinian statehood. Peru became the 108th nation to do so, on Jan. 24, said Rabii Hantouli, a diplomat at the Palestinian UN Observer Mission.

While 108 votes are more than enough to pass a resolution, “we are still working on having more recognitions from countries,” Hantouli told The InterDependent. “Things are going very well.”

Israel, for its part, expressed “regret and disappointment” at the tactic. “All attempts to bypass negotiations and to unilaterally determine issues in dispute will only harm the trust of the sides and their commitment to agreed-upon frameworks for negotiations," the statement said.