U.N. Debate Cannot Lead to Middle East Peace: How Not to Make a Nation
Published in Die Tageszeitung
(Germany) on 26 September 2011
by Klaus Hillenbrand (link to
original)
To be sure, the Palestinians have every right to strive for recognition as a nation. Naturally, they can submit an application to the U.N. Security Council, and without a doubt, Israel, the U.S. and Europe have an obligation to the Palestinians, who have been waiting 63 years for the state promised to them.
The question remains, however, whether the effort is also expedient in the direction of a real peace in the Middle East. All involved parties know that the U.S. will use its veto in the Security Council. One may like to denounce this behavior of the U.S. as politically, legally and morally reprehensible. More agreeable negotiating partners cannot back the Palestinians themselves though. They must put up with those who rule, and they are Netanyahu and Obama.
Thus, one must fear that the U.N. debate about a separate nation of Palestinians will even make the full moral success more difficult, because it names and shames the alleged guilty parties, but this policy cannot lead to peace.
Precisely because a propagandistic defeat lies in store for Israel and its protector, the U.S., their already distinctly meager inclination toward the realization of a two-state solution will further dissipate. One may then castigate that, too, full of righteous indignation, but there have been ample victories in the propaganda war between Jordan and the Mediterranean.
It finally depends on pragmatic steps toward peace, and as little as the expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is suitable to that, the right to a “return” of all displaced persons to Israel promoted by the Palestinian side is just as little help: That, namely, would lead to a two-state condition meaning two Arab states — therefore, the end of Israel.
The question remains, however, whether the effort is also expedient in the direction of a real peace in the Middle East. All involved parties know that the U.S. will use its veto in the Security Council. One may like to denounce this behavior of the U.S. as politically, legally and morally reprehensible. More agreeable negotiating partners cannot back the Palestinians themselves though. They must put up with those who rule, and they are Netanyahu and Obama.
Thus, one must fear that the U.N. debate about a separate nation of Palestinians will even make the full moral success more difficult, because it names and shames the alleged guilty parties, but this policy cannot lead to peace.
Precisely because a propagandistic defeat lies in store for Israel and its protector, the U.S., their already distinctly meager inclination toward the realization of a two-state solution will further dissipate. One may then castigate that, too, full of righteous indignation, but there have been ample victories in the propaganda war between Jordan and the Mediterranean.
It finally depends on pragmatic steps toward peace, and as little as the expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is suitable to that, the right to a “return” of all displaced persons to Israel promoted by the Palestinian side is just as little help: That, namely, would lead to a two-state condition meaning two Arab states — therefore, the end of Israel.