Palestine: A State Without Sovereignty

Israeli air strike hits a media center in Gaza City, November 2012

The decades-long conflict between Israel and Palestine has escalated in recent weeks. While both sides blame each other for the violence, the recent period of escalation began when Israel assassinated the top military commander in Gaza, Ahmed al-Jabari. Labeling him a "terrorist", Israel asserted that this action was a self-defense measure in response to Palestinian rockets in the past. Hamas, the militant political organization in Gaza, responded by resuming rocket fire into Israel. What followed was an unrelenting assault by Israeli air forces on targets in Gaza deemed to be associated with the "terrorists". Israeli air strikes, despite being praised as highly precise by Israeli spokesmen, killed many Palestinian civilians and caused widespread destruction of property unconnected with Hamas. After eight days of fighting, a the two sides agreed on a cease-fire. Over 100 Palestinian civilians had been killed, while there were only 4 deaths on the Israeli side. Both sides celebrated the result of the conflict as a victory.

Palestinians launch rockets at Israel from Gaza

After the cease-fire, Palestinians took the initiative by proposing a UN resolution on their statehood. Mahmoud Abbas, the Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and President of the Palestinian Authority, traveled to the UN in New York to ask the international community for recognition of Palestinian statehood. In his speech, he called for the UN to issue a "birth certificate" of the Palestinian state, just as it had done for Israel in 1947. In 2011, the Palestinians had made a failed bid for full UN membership as a state. This time, they asked for non-member observer state status, the same category as the Vatican in Rome. Non-member statehood recognition is mostly symbolic and does not grant the right to propose resolutions in the UN General Assembly. However, it does allow complaints to be filed in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other international institutions. But perhaps most importantly, the recognition of Palestinian statehood would mean a huge boost to the morale and unity of the Palestinian struggle for sovereignty.

Palestinian delegates celebrate UN resolution granting non-member statehood

The result of the UN vote was an overwhelming victory for Palestine. The international community voted 138 to 9 to grant Palestine non-member statehood, with 41 abstentions. Predictably, Israel and the United States were leading the "no" votes. Unlike past votes on the Palestinian issue, however, the majority of voting nations did not fall in line behind the two powers who claim to be fighting for peace and human rights. The clear majority of this resolution shows that the US and Israel are increasingly diplomatically isolated, and can no longer dictate the decisions of the UN. Even our once-dependable European allies did not fall in line, with Britain abstaining and France voting "yes". The implications of this vote are wider than the Israel-Palestine issue, because it shows that the US has lost its role as the unquestioned leader of Western nations.

Vote count for UN  resolution on Palestinian non-member statehood

The argument given for US opposition was that the resolution would be counterproductive to the "peace process", because Palestinians should be negotiating directly with Israel. The Palestinian response is that they cannot negotiate when their land is constantly being taken away by Israeli settlements. This fact was reconfirmed immediately after the UN resolution, when Israel announced a new controversial settlement. The planned settlement, which is called E1, is highly controversial because it separate the West Bank from East Jerusalem, the potential future capitol of a Palestinian state. It is clear from this announcement that the UN resolution has done little to change the situation on the ground. Only time will tell whether Palestinians can achieve true sovereignty, despite Israeli efforts to take control of what they see as ancestral Jewish land.

Planned Israeli settlement east of Jerusalem