There’s More to Independence Than an Application
Statehood Won’t Necessarily Mean Progress for Palestine
This past Friday, Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas applied for formal recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations General Assembly. This move, despite being symbolically uplifting for his constituents, was a step in the wrong direction for the Palestinian cause.
The Palestinian state that Abbas sought recognition for has been under varying levels of Israeli occupation since 1967 and has enjoyed observer status at the United Nations since 1974.
While the application for official recognition of Palestinian statehood was meant to further the progression towards the achievement of an independent Palestinian state, that outcome seems unlikely.
Unfortunately for Palestinian leadership, it is the Israelis who exercise the real control over the territory that would make up any future Palestinian state. Antagonizing them with unilateral applications for statehood at the UN is not a good way of getting them to ever relinquish any of that control.
For years, internationally-mediated peace talks have been the accepted procedure for concessions made by both the Israelis and the Palestinians. In bypassing such mediums, the Palestinian National Authority has created a situation where the realization of an independent state seems less likely today than it did a week ago.
The most obvious obstacle keeping the Palestinians from creating a state at this point is the civil war that has divided that community since 2006.
No state can be created until the leadership of Hamas and Fatah come to some understanding whereby the rights of each are fully respected within a democratic framework.
An independent Palestinian state cannot emerge until the Palestinian people cease to be at war with themselves.
Palestinian leadership and the people need to think about what kind of state they eventually want to see created.
Based on how the Palestinian National Authority has conducted itself in the past, if an independent Palestinian state were created tomorrow, it would be plagued by corruption and government mismanagement. The future citizens of a Palestinian state should pressure their leaders to root out the systematic mismanagement and corruption that characterizes many of the current institutions of the Palestinian National Authority.
It would be a great shame if over 60 years of Palestinian struggle resulted in the creation of a state in which many Palestinians would not even want to live.
Formal recognition of statehood from the United Nations is something that most newly independent states apply for, but it does not make them independent.
If the Palestinian leadership truly wants to make progress in their national project, they would be wise to acknowledge the facts on the ground.
They should continue in their talks with the Israelis and, perhaps more importantly, undergo internal changes that will make a future state both possible and deserving of
the struggles and aspirations of the Palestinian people.
