The New York Times News Service | Report
Sunday 4 September 2011
by: Steven Lee Meyers and Mark Landler,
Sunday 4 September 2011
by: Steven Lee Meyers and Mark Landler,
Washington - The Obama administration has initiated a last-ditch
diplomatic campaign to avert a confrontation this month over a plan by Palestinians to seek recognition as a state at the United Nations, but it may already be too late, according to senior American officials and foreign diplomats.
The administration has circulated a proposal for renewed peace talks
with the Israelis in the hopes of persuading the Palestinian president,
Mahmoud Abbas, to abandon the bid for recognition at the annual
gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly
beginning Sept. 20.
The administration has made it clear to Mr. Abbas that it will veto any
request presented to the United Nations Security Council to make a
Palestinian state a new member outright.
But the United States does not have enough support to block a vote by
the General Assembly to elevate the status of the Palestinians’
nonvoting observer “entity” to that of a nonvoting observer state. The
change would pave the way for the Palestinians to join dozens of United
Nations bodies and conventions, and it could strengthen their ability to
pursue cases against Israel at the International Criminal Court.
Senior officials said the administration wanted to avoid not only a
veto but also the more symbolic and potent General Assembly vote that
would leave the United States and only a handful of other nations in the
opposition. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
discuss diplomatic maneuverings, said they feared that in either case a
wave of anger could sweep the Palestinian territories and the wider Arab
world at a time when the region is already in tumult. President Obama
would be put in the position of threatening to veto recognition of the
aspirations of most Palestinians or risk alienating Israel and its
political supporters in the United States.
“If you put the alternative out there, then you’ve suddenly just
changed the circumstances and changed the dynamic,” a senior
administration official involved in the flurry of diplomacy said
Thursday. “And that’s what we’re trying very much to do.”
Efforts to head off the Palestinian diplomatic drive have percolated
all summer but have taken on urgency as the vote looms in the coming
weeks. “It’s not clear to me how it can be avoided at the moment,” said
Ghaith al-Omari, a former Palestinian negotiator who is now executive
director of the American Task Force on Palestine in Washington. “An
American veto could inflame emotions and bring anti-American sentiment
to the forefront across the region.”
While some officials remain optimistic that a compromise can be found,
the administration has simultaneously begun planning to limit the
fallout of a statehood vote. A primary focus is to ensure the Israelis
and Palestinians continue to cooperate on security matters in the West
Bank and along Israel’s borders, administration officials said.
“We’re still focused on Plan A,” another senior administration official
said, referring to the diplomatic efforts by the administration’s new
special envoy, David M. Hale, and the president’s Middle East adviser on
the National Security Council, Dennis B. Ross. Mr. Hale replaced the
more prominent George J. Mitchell Jr., who resigned in May after two
years of frustrated efforts to make progress on a peace deal.
The State Department late last month issued a formal diplomatic message
to more than 70 countries urging them to oppose any unilateral moves by
the Palestinians at the United Nations. The message, delivered by
American ambassadors to their diplomatic counterparts in those
countries, argued that a vote would destabilize the region and undermine
peace efforts, though those are, at least for now, moribund.
Two administration officials said that the intent of the message was to
narrow the majority the Palestinians are expected to have in the
General Assembly. They said that and the new peace proposal — to be
issued in a statement by the Quartet, the diplomatic group focused on
the Middle East comprising the United States, Russia, the European Union
and the United Nations — could persuade potential supporters to step
back from a vote on recognition, and thus force Mr. Abbas to have second
thoughts.
“The fact is there are countries who would choose not to do that vote
if there was an alternative,” the first senior administration official
said.
In essence, the administration is trying to translate the broad
principles Mr. Obama outlined in May into a concrete road map for talks
that would succeed where past efforts have failed: satisfy Israel, give
the Palestinians an alternative to going to the United Nations and win
the endorsement of the Europeans.
Diplomats are laboring to formulate language that would bridge stubborn
differences over how to treat Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and
over Israel’s demand for recognition of its status as a Jewish state. A
statement by the Quartet would be more than a symbolic gesture. It would
outline a series of meetings and actions to resume talks to create a
Palestinian state.
The Quartet’s members are divided over the proposal’s terms and
continue to negotiate them among themselves, and with the Palestinians
and Israelis.
Among the issues still on the table are how explicitly to account for
the growing settlements in the West Bank. The question of Israel’s
status is also opposed by Russia and viewed warily by some European
countries. The Palestinians have never acceded to a formal recognition
of Israel as a Jewish state, in deference at least in part to the
Palestinians who live in Israel.
The Quartet’s envoy, Tony Blair, the former British prime minister,
visited Jerusalem on Tuesday to negotiate the terms of the proposal with
the Israelis. He is expected to discuss it with the Palestinians soon.
The Israelis have so far responded positively to the draft, but the Palestinian position remains unclear.
Two administration officials said that Mr. Abbas had recently indicated
that he would forgo a United Nations vote in favor of real talks. But a
senior Palestinian official, Nabil Shaath, angrily dismissed the
American proposal as inadequate and said a vote would go ahead
regardless.
“Whoever wrote this thought we are so weak that we cannot even wiggle
or that we are stupid,” he said in a telephone interview from Ramallah
in the West Bank. He added, “Whatever is to be offered, it is too late.”
Within the administration, there are different views of the situation’s
urgency. Some officials believe that the United States can weather a
veto diplomatically, as it has before, and politically at home because
of the strong support for Israel in Congress. But others view the
Palestinian push for recognition as deeply alarming, raising the specter
of new instability and violence in the West Bank and Gaza.
“The most powerful argument is that this will provoke a Palestinian
awakening, that there will be a new violence and that we’ll be blamed,”
said Martin S. Indyk, a former American ambassador to Israel.
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