Better Choices

There is great determination in the Palestinian Authority.  They will not be deterred.  Their insistence that they receive observer status akin to that given the Vatican is not amenable to persuasion otherwise.  Their push for United Nations recognition as a sovereign Palestinian state is not negotiable, "under any circumstances".

The application for status would be presented no later than November 29, a date that has been set aside as an international day of "Palestinian solidarity".  And there is ample solidarity within the United Nations, with the Arab League and its supporters and the Muslim ummah, along with the post-colonial non-aligned nations bloc to ensure ample support for the Palestinians.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has a plan he will not be deterred from.  While UNESCO did take the unusual step of agreeing to formally recognize the PA and give it the membership and authority within the UN body that it sought, it is access to the International Criminal Court that the PA legislation seeks.  To charge Israel with human rights abuses relative to its ongoing construction in the West Bank.

Somewhat akin, in their estimation, to the ICC's having found Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir guilty on three counts of genocide for his vicious atrocities in Darfur - but somewhat more deserved in condemnation of the Israelis.  Those genocide charges have been set aside as completely irrelevant by the Arab League which welcomes President Bashir with open arms to their meetings, with no intention of handing him over to ICC justice.

But a strange thing happened on the way to the United Nations with the PA application, a draft of which is already in the hands of 193 United Nations-affiliated countries.  President Abbas went first to a meeting of the Arab League in Egypt where European foreign ministers were also present, to appeal to them for support of his initiative.

Photo: Reuters / handout
 
European and Arab foreign ministers failed to jointly endorse the unilateral Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations during a meeting in Cairo on Tuesday, calling instead for a negotiated two-state solution.  It seems that Mr. Abbas was insufficiently persuasive.  Although there is little doubt he will still receive a majority vote in favour of the PA's formalization as a "non-member" with observer status, it will be absent the strong support he sought.

And perhaps that owes as much to the fact that despite his pledge that he will sit down with Israel immediately upon receiving the desired status to hammer out an agreement for peace and for two countries existing side by side without conflict, he has avoided doing so for far too long.  While blaming Israel for recalcitrance and imposing pre-requisites certain to be dismissed.

The West Bank economy is in dire straits.  It is an entirely false economy, wholly dependent on charity from the European Union and the Arab League.  Of the almost $2-billion annually it receives from those sources, one-half has gone into steep decline, with the Authority unable to pay its huge, unwieldy public service which represents the bulk of paid employment in the West Bank.

According to economists, both external and internal, the very existence of the Palestinian Authority is at risk because of a fiscal crisis that is seeing business in the West Bank sliding toward failure. The 170,000 employees of the PA whose salaries support roughly a quarter of the West Bank and Gaza Strip population has seen a dramatic drop in foreign funding.  The result has been failure to pay employees in a timely manner.

Social instability looms threateningly.  "The salaries are the most important single factor deciding the level of poverty.  They are like a monthly blood transfusion to our economic body", said an economist at An Najah University in Nablus.  Currently the PA faces a $260-million financing shortfall, more than its monthly wage bill, according to the World Bank.

It therefore begs the question; why is the Palestinian Authority not more concerned that it does not have the infrastructure in place to present as a nation prepared to become sovereign and responsible for its own well-being?  In the long history of the refusal of Palestinians to accept the land apportioned to them through the UN's Partition Plan they have lived as refugees, willingly so, complacent about receiving financial handouts from the UN and the world at large.

Rather than concerning themselves with encouraging the population to become assertively entrepreneurial, self-respecting and capable, they have lived on a deadly diet of victimhood, satisfied with that status, and looking for the opportunity to retake the land they still insist belongs to them.  Until such time as Palestinians themselves accommodate themselves to the reality of their situation they will continue to stagnate.

That two-state solution if and when it ever results from the current state of chaos and crisis, could result in the advanced society with the strong economy, mentoring its neighbour with trade and employment agreements that would have the effect of enhancing both economies.  Laying aside enmity and hostility for the greater good of prosperity and a future is not entirely impossible.