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Will PA’s UN bid stifle the peace process?

A credible third party must come forward with a framework for negotiations to persuade the Palestinians to drop their bid.

Abbas talks against backdrop of Arafat image
Photo by: Courtesy
There is a plethora of statements being made by top officials from the United States, Europe, Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the wisdom of the Palestinians’ attempt to upgrade their status in the UN from an observer entity to an observer state. The resulting consequences for the Palestinians and the peace process remain to be seen. Regardless of the pros and cons, the frozen Israeli-Palestinian peace process must be defrosted. Whether or not this is the opportune time for the Palestinians’ bid remains subject to varied speculations. However, one thing must be clear: the status quo is not sustainable and a new dynamic must be introduced to prevent potentially dire consequences for both the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The efforts to postpone or prevent the Palestinians’ UN bid on the premise that such a move will undermine future peace negotiations does not hold much water. The peace negotiations have been frozen since 2010 and the prospect of their resumption is not in sight. Speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, implored the Palestinians to go to the negotiating table: “This is the only way it [the conflict] can be addressed, so I am certain we will continue to look for opportunities to bring the parties together and try to resolve the conflict together, through direct negotiations.” The irony is that there was hardly any progress made to mitigate the Israel-Palestinian conflict in the past three years, and to “look for opportunities to bring the parties together” just rings hollow; one has to wonder what opportunities he is talking about when the peace process continues to languish.

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