Seems like someone should have checked to see if the Arab states’ resolution, presented by Jordan and Mahmoud Abbas, actually has Palestinian support.
The resolution demands that Israel shrink to the 1949 armistice lines, referred to as “withdrawing to the pre-67 borders and from
east Jerusalem.” This would be followed
by the creation of a Palestinian state.
The Palestinian government of Gaza (Hamas) and a
number of Palestinian factions including the DFLP (Democratic Front for the
Liberation of Palestine) are fully against it. This is because the resolution
allows for Israel’s existence, something that these organizations oppose.
And recent polls
indicate that Gazans themselves support Hamas over Abbas’ Fatah.
But it’s not clear that that the Palestinian Authority wants two states either. Even
when a Hamas-Fatah partnership looked like it was about to happen – as it did
several months ago – Hamas was in no way asked to change its foundational
agenda of removing Jewish Israel.
Naturally, the Israeli government opposes a resolution
imposed on it by the UN – not only, or even primarily, because of the UN’s
constant outpouring of resolutions against Israel far out of proportion to that
of any other country, but because all the issues involved in creating a state
of Palestine – something that the Israeli government supports – impact the
entire existing state of Israel and the lives millions of people.
The US is expected to veto the resolution, in any case.
Meanwhile, a majority of the member states of the UN have
already symbolically recognized a state of Palestine.
And Europe is rapidly following suit, reiterating after
every vote that the support of their parliaments are merely “symbolic
gestures.”
Even with a real UN resolution, demands are only symbolic without the work of negotiation between the two countries and the work of
building the political structure for the state of Palestine. These resolutions
have a way of ignoring the people actually involved, both Jews and Arabs.
Repeated polls have found that in predominately Arab neighborhoods
of Jerusalem, more residents want to be part of Israel than of Palestine. In a recent survey, 40% of Arabs said they would move
into Israel if their neighborhood became Palestinian and 27% said they wanted
to be part of a Palestinian state.
Mahmoud Abbas has said that when the state of Palestine is
formed, not one Jew should be allowed to live there.
