Israel and the family of nations should look into the Palestinian statehood bid and judge it based on current international law.
By Issa Edward Boursheh
The Montevideo Convention, today a part of customary international law, outlines four requirements for statehood:
a) Defined territory
b) Permanent population
c) Government
d) Capacity to enter into relations with other states
Does the future Palestine state meet the following criteria? And if not, will negotiations offer a reasonable solution that will keep the longed-for two-state solution alive?
If there’s one thing that Netanyahu should do this September, it is to thank Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for turning to the United Nations to make the Palestinian bid for statehood. The above requirements will never be agreed upon in negotiations with his current government nor were they fully fulfilled in previous negotiations by previous governments.
Defined territory means territorial compromise, mainly by Israel. According to resolution UN resolutions 242 and 338, the border between Israel and Palestine should be based on the border prior to the June 4th, 1967. In today’s discourse, that means adding the land swaps based on a 1:1 ratio to the equation, something I don’t agree with on principle. According to this concept, presuming the settlements continue to flourish for the next 50 years – the land swap will take place with Sinai and Jordan. In his previous address to the UN, Foreign Minister Lieberman showed the real face of Netanyahu’s government by saying: “a Middle East peace deal could take decades”. These are decades of pointless, endless negotiations that will gain more time for continuous occupation of the West Bank and further expansion of the settlement project.
Even though Israeli public opinion largely supports the bases of 1967 for a future Palestinian state, it seems to me that Netanyahu’s objective is his coalition’s survival and his lack of interest in promoting what he stated in his own word in the Bar Ilan speech:
We do not want to rule over them. We do not want to run their lives. We do not want to force our flag and our culture on them. In my vision of peace, there are two free peoples living side by side in this small land, with good neighborly relations and mutual respect, each with its flag, anthem and government, with neither one threatening its neighbor’s security and existence.
Jerusalem is also part of the defined territory debate. The current East and West division of the city makes sense geographically and in terms of population. Again, time is on Netanyahu’s side with continuous approvals of new housing construction in East Jerusalem, such as in the Har Homa neighborhood in August 2011 as just one recent example. According to the 1947 Partition Plan, Jerusalem should be an international city. I believe that such an arrangement guaranteeing freedom of movement and religion for all Palestinians and Israelis is a fair deal.
Resolving the permanent population issue requires both sides to find a middle ground regarding the Palestinian refugees and the Israeli settlers. What Netanyahu stated in his Bar Ilan speech left no hope at all for Palestinian Right of Return:
…we need a clear agreement to solve the Palestinian refugee problem outside of the borders of the State of Israel. For it is clear to all that the demand to settle the Palestinian refugees inside of Israel, contradicts the continued existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish People.
Complementing Netanyahu, Abbas met a Congressional delegation this August and said that he is seeking a Palestinian state without settlements. This might sound too simplistic and many may disagree but reaching an agreement to bring back Israeli settlers into Israel and offering their settlements to returning Palestinian refugees seems like the obvious resolution to me.
The Oslo agreement in many ways solved the question of government for the future Palestinian state. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has further developed the Palestinian Authority with his two-year plan to build institutions and infrastructure for the future Palestinian state. Programs similar to Fayyad’s, by NGOs and the international community, further developed the rule of law allowing a functional government to run the show in the future. Clearly the efforts are not sufficient and there need to be major improvements, but compared to other states in the family of nations, the Palestinians are far from the worst and are doing well, relative to their situation.
The September vote in the UN will determine if the Palestinians have the capacity to enter into relations with other states. The U.S. plays a key role in this matter and its support for the UN bid and the afterwards negotiations, along with Israel’s, may be the first step towards a future Palestinian state.
Having said all of that, I can’t see Netanyahu promoting any of the UN statehood requirements through negotiations. Abbas predicts a ‘very difficult’ time for Palestinians after the UN bid and many Palestinians know he is right. Israel will take every measure to make the Palestinian leadership regret this diplomatic move, or at least all kosher means. The Palestinians know this.
Therefore the Palestinian bid, as I perceive it, is an act of hopelessness regarding negotiations with governments of Israel. But Abbas is willing to pay this price, hoping to shake the systems and boost future negotiations that will once and for all end the conflict. The Palestinian delegation should place a bid that is as general as possible with the sole aim of receiving recognition as a state. Such a move will guarantee the international community’s support and put more pressure on Israel to vote in favor of the Palestinian statehood, as a first step.
Issa Edward Boursheh is a graduate student at Tel Aviv University.