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Obama's
November Surprise
by Gregg Roman
The Hill
September 26, 2016
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President
Obama is contemplating a surprise move to permit anti-Israel action by
the UN Security Council during his final months in office.
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There is growing speculation that President Obama will spring a
diplomatic surprise on Israel during the interregnum between the U.S.
presidential election on Nov. 8 and his departure from office in January.
Some say the surprise will be a speech laying down parameters for a
final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute or some type of
formal censure of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but the scenario
generating most discussion is a decision to support, or perhaps not to
veto, a UN Security Council resolution recognizing a Palestinian state.
This would be a bombshell. Washington's long-stated policy is that a
Palestinian state should be established only through an agreement
negotiated directly between the two sides. In practice, this would
require that Palestinian leaders agreed to recognize Israel as a Jewish
state and concede the so-called "right of return" for refugees
of the 1948 war and their descendants to areas within Israel's borders, a
prospect which would mean the demographic destruction of Israel.
Past administrations understood
the folly of recognizing Palestinian statehood before a peace
settlement.
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For decades, Palestinian leaders have made
it clear they won't do this: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
doesn't mince words, telling
a gathering of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo in November 2014, "We
will never recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel." Efforts
to win recognition of Palestinian statehood by foreign governments and
multilateral institutions are designed to skirt this precondition for
statehood.
Any state that comes into existence without Palestinian leaders
formally recognizing Israel will be a brutal, unstable train wreck, with
areas under its jurisdiction likely to remain a hotbed of terrorism. On
top of whatever existing factors are producing the endemic corruption and
autocracy of the Abbas regime (not to mention the Hamas regime in Gaza),
unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state will vindicate radicals who
have been saying all along that there's no need to compromise.
On the other hand, official Palestinian acknowledgement once and for
all that Israel is not just here to stay, but has a right to stay,
would deprive Palestinian leaders of time-honored tools for manipulating
their constituents – appealing to and inflaming their baser anti-Jewish
prejudices, promising them salvation if they'll only shut up 'til the
Zionists are defeated, and so forth. Instead, they will have to do things
like govern well and create jobs to win public support.
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Palestinian
incitement to violence starts early. Above, the second grade
Palestinian textbook Our Beautiful Language depicts Israelis
uprooting trees from Palestinian land.
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Previous American administrations have understood that recognizing
Palestinian statehood before Abbas and company allow Palestinian society
to undergo this transformation would be the height of irresponsibility.
This is why American veto power has consistently blocked efforts to
unilaterally establish a Palestinian state by way of the UN Security
Council.
Notwithstanding his apparent pro-Palestinian
sympathies and affiliations prior to running for the Senate and later
the White House, President Obama initially maintained this policy. The
expressed threat of an American veto foiled Abbas' 2011 bid to win UN
member-state status for "Palestine." He settled for recognition
of non-member-state status by the General Assembly in 2012.
As moves by the PA to bring the issue of statehood to the UN picked up
steam last year, however, it appeared to walk back this commitment. While
U.S officials privately maintained there was "no change," Obama
and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha
Power refused – despite the urging
of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid – to state publicly that the U.S. would
use its veto to stop a resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood.
The conventional wisdom was that Obama's refusal to make such a public
declaration was intended to exert pressure on Netanyahu to tone down his
opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, and later to punish him for it or
hold it out to secure concessions. As his presidency enters its final
months, it's clear something even more nefarious is at work.
Congress must use the tools at its
disposal to make a reckless policy reversal by Obama as difficult as
possible.
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President Obama's failure to clarify his administration's position has
greatly damaged prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Even if it is
Obama's intention to veto any resolution on Palestinian statehood that
comes up at the UN, his refusal to publicly state this – or, put
differently, his determination to go on the record for the history books not
saying it – has fueled perceptions among Palestinians and European
governments facing pressures of their own that American will is
softening.
It is imperative that Congress use the tools at its disposal to make
this unwise path as difficult as possible for the Obama administration.
Ultimately, a one-sided UN declaration such as this serves only to
postpone by a long shot the day when Palestinian leaders accept Israel as
it is – the homeland of the Jewish people – and allow their subjects to
enjoy the lasting peace and prosperity they and their neighbors deserve.
Gregg Roman is director of the
Middle East Forum.
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