The attempt by the Palestinians to introduce a resolution for statehood in the fall of 2011 was pretty much doomed from the start, because the Obama administration had promised to use its veto power in the UN Security Council to block passage. Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas decided to introduce the resolution despite the enormous pressure being applied by the United States. Abbas had hoped to "jump-start" negotiations on a solution to the conflict but his failure sends a message that moderates and moderation have no ability to move the peace process, leaving a hard-line campaign premised on violence as the only feasible path to take. Defeat of the Palestinian efforts at the United Nations have returned the negotiations to a frozen state.
The United States has castigated the Palestinians for seeking a back door entrance to statehood through the United Nations Security Council. Yet, Israel achieved statehood through United Nations auspices.
The possibility of a breakthrough in Israeli/Palestinian negotiations seems to be very dim because the Israeli public seems generally satisfied with the status quo. Most members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet do not hide their opposition to Palestinian statehood and they openly advocate permanent retention of the occupied territories. Danny Danon, a Likud member and deputy speaker of the Knesset, has called on Netanyahu "to rectify the mistake we made in 1967 by failing to annex all of the West Bank."
Benny Begin, a member of the so-called Septet, Netanyahu's seven-member inner security cabinet, has said: "The establishment of a foreign independent sovereign state headed by the PLO in parts of the Land of Israel stands in opposition to the basic ideas that are both supported by a majority of the Knesset: the absolute historic right of the Nation of Israel to the Land of Israel and the right of the State of Israel to national security."
The Arab Spring has inspired hope and vision among Palestinians that they might gain self-determination and human rights; conversely, a more democratic Arab world reduces Israel's room to operate and it provides a ray of hope in cracking the current negotiating paradigm of U.S. control, Israeli domination and Palestinian retreat. Once more, Israel has lost an ally with the fall of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak.
One specific change in Israel's plans attributed to the Arab Spring is the calling off of a major military assault on Gaza in retaliation for the August 18 infiltration that killed eight Israelis. The assault was reportedly put off because it would look particularly heavy-handed in light of the hope of a less authoritarian world inspired by the Arab Spring.
What Should Obama Do or Have Done?
The main tenets of an Israeli/Palestinian settlement promoted by the United States should include: 1) a two-state solution with each side accepting the full sovereignty of the other; 2) the end of Israeli settlement building in the West bank and East Jerusalem -- negotiations between the two states would determine what happens to the existing settlements; 3) the division of Jerusalem into two spheres of control; 4) compensation for those who can demonstrate that they or their immediate families lost their homes in what is now a part of pre-1967 Israel.
There is a proposal to create a Middle Eastern Economic Investment Authority once a two-state solution has been fully implemented. This proposal should be given serious consideration.
The United State can exercise maximum leverage by withholding all economic and military aid from which ever side is proving to be an obstacle to plan implementation. Military aid would very likely affect only Israel.
In regard to nuclear weapons, the United States should be putting pressure on Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; also, it should be working to make the Middle East a nuclear weapons-free zone, which could make Iran more amenable to ending its own efforts to get a nuclear bomb.
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