The U.S. Plays for Time

Nine of the 15 U.N. Security Council members support Palestine’s application for full United Nations recognition, but the United States will use its veto power to push for further negotiations.

On Monday, the U.N. Security Council will take up Palestine’s application for United Nations membership, as submitted by President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday.

In all probability, the Security Council will not reach an immediate decision on the request, despite the fact that a majority nine of the 15 council members favor it and would forward it to the General Assembly with a recommendation to approve.

But there the United States will use its veto power, probably backed by non-permanent council member Germany, and request a postponement of any decision until new peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians take place according to a schedule now being worked out by the so-called Middle East Quartet, which is composed of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. It says that both sides should return to the negotiating table with a self-imposed goal of reaching a result by the end of February 2012, at the latest.

Moscow Conference

Other deadlines on the Quartet’s schedule: Comprehensive proposals for border and national security concerns to be presented within three months, and indications of “substantial progress” to be submitted for approval to an international conference to be held in Moscow after six months. Also being planned is a conference to secure pledges to support the construction of a Palestinian governmental structure.

Abbas rejected the plan as “inadequate” because it failed to call for a halt to continued illegal Israeli settlement building in the occupied territories as a precondition for negotiations, nor was there an Israeli offer to voluntarily do so.

That precondition had been the Quartet’s official position ever since President Obama declared it the official position of the United States in 2009. The United States, however, did an about face on the matter later that year, calling the Palestinian demand for such a halt “an unacceptable precondition.”

The Quartet’s deliberations on the new initiative put the United States at odds with the wishes of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as well as the Russian government, because the demand for a halt to new settlement building was not included. European Union Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton backs the U.S. position despite the fact that a clear majority of the 27 European Union nations voted to retain the demand for a stop to settlement construction. Ashton was under considerable pressure from Germany to support America’s position.

Flip-flopper Sarkozy

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who initially supported the Palestinian initiative to petition the U.N. for membership, nevertheless advocated dropping the demand for a settlement halt by the time the Quartet had finished its deliberations. Likewise, at the insistence of the United States and European Union, and against the wishes of the United Nations and Russia, the Quartet abandoned the demand for a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.

Obama expressly supported this position, which is also in accordance with international law, in his speech before the U.N. General Assembly in September 2010. But the president also abandoned that demand in the speech he delivered last Wednesday. In his speech to the General Assembly, Abbas made a resumption of negotiations with Israel dependent upon a halt to Israeli settlement building, as well as a return to the 1967 borders.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu immediately rejected those demands as “unacceptable” and laid out his own demands for a peace treaty: The Palestinians must recognize Israel as a “Jewish state” and accept that Israel would have to continue to maintain an open-ended military presence on Palestinian territory.

The Security Council will probably forward the Palestinian request to a subcommittee for further study, a process that could last for several months.