IT'S SO HARD WHEN THE LITTLE ONES LEAVE THE NEST:

Palestinians Declare Independence from U.S. (Henry Siegman, September 22, 2011, National Interest)

According to the prevailing rules, every aspect of the Palestinians' existence depends on Israel. Whether Palestinians can travel from town to town within the areas to which they are restricted, open a new business venture, see their homes demolished by an Israeli bulldozer--indeed whether they will live or die--are Israeli decisions, often made by armed Israeli eighteen-year-olds just out of high school.

The Oslo Accords, requiring as they do that Israel withdraw its occupation in stages from the West Bank, were intended to change that reality. But Oslo was quickly undermined by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who declared--"unilaterally"--that the dates established in the accords for the withdrawals are not "holy" and can be ignored by Israel. Furthermore, as noted by Uri Savir, who headed Israel's Foreign Ministry at the time, Rabin had no intention of returning the Jordan Valley or of sharing Jerusalem. (He might well have changed his views on these issues, as he did on some others, had he not been assassinated by a settler.)

Although the Oslo Accords did not mention a Palestinian state, statehood was the goal implicit in the agreement's terms and the permanent-status issues slated for negotiations between the parties. But the peace process overseen by the United States was based on an unstated principle that fatally undermined the achievement of a Palestinian state: that any change in the Palestinians' status as a people under Israel's occupation depended entirely on Israel's consent. This effectively excluded everyone other than the occupiers from a role in deciding the Palestinians' fate. The UN, which was established to assure compliance with international law and to facilitate the self-determination of peoples living under colonial domination, was shunted aside. Above all, this principle excluded the Palestinian people themselves.

To be sure, President Obama recently proposed that negotiations begin at the 1967 lines, with territorial swaps. What he failed to say is that if the parties cannot reach agreement on the swaps, the lines will be drawn by the Security Council. Indeed, he said the opposite--that peace terms cannot be imposed on Israel. His proposal therefore changed nothing. Netanyahu can continue to make demands he knows no Palestinian leader can accept, and the occupation persists.

The real meaning of the Palestinians' decision to defy the United States is that they will no longer accept their occupier's role in their quest for statehood. They demand national self-determination as a right--indeed, as a "peremptory norm" that in international law takes precedence over all other considerations--and not as an act of charity by their occupiers.

The one up-side is that the more America and Israel resist the inevitable the more significant the accomplishment will seem to the Palestinians. It also provides us with that delicious raft of stories about waning US influence in the Middle East as demonstrated by the citizenries demanding that their states be just like ours.

Posted by oj at September 22, 2011 7:37 AM
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