The UN bid should triumph

The Palestinian statehood bid is in rough waters. The onus squarely lies on Mahmoud Abbas as to how much pressure he can take in rewriting history and going ahead with an initiative that is justified and ordained as per international law.

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Published: Thu 22 Sep 2011, 8:41 PM

Last updated: Mon 6 Apr 2015, 7:03 PM

The demand for the declaration of an independent Palestinian state is finally in the spotlight, and promptly on the table of the world body. But all this will depend on how he choreographs his speech and intention at the United Nations when he addresses the General Assembly on Friday. Between now and then there may be many a slip between the lip and cup. Abbas’s meeting with US President Barack Obama will cast the dye. Obama’s proposition that he will try to prevail over Abbas to drop a bid for UN recognition is politics of expediency and falls short of the stature and prestige of his high office and personal integrity. This is the time for the White House incumbent to recast himself as the daring leader that he exhibited, as he became the first African-American president and brought in a ray of hope for the subjects of Middle East, Asia and the Muslim world.

Obama’s plea that only bilateral talks can help address the Palestinian-Israeli imbroglio doesn’t carry any rationale, as it is the Jewish state that had sabotaged and derailed all efforts for a deal across the table. Israel’s ifs and buts’ are to be primarily blamed for the failure of the so-called peace talks, and secondly its adamant attitude, that creation of a Palestinian state is an anathema of its self-profiled security paradigm. Things have to change for good and the Arab Spring has squarely reflected that agenda as far as the inhabitants of the Middle East are concerned. The solution lies in a two-state solution and that has been duly admitted by both the United States and Israel. Thus there is no point in torpedoing the Palestinian Authority’s UN initiative merely on the premise that it would come to embarrass Israel denying it of the space to hoodwink world opinion any further.

The yes vote on the part of more than three-fourth of the world body is in need of being respected. While the European Union is yet to show its cards, one hopes that categorical and high moral stand taken by Russia and China to support the UN bid would make the difference. The US and, especially, Obama would be better advised not to stand on the wrong side of human and political history.


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