Palestine could not become a full-member state of the UN last year so President Mahmoud Abbas is now trying for second best. This time, he is seeking non-member observer status, which is relatively easier than the pursuance of recognition as a full member state which was doomed from the start because of the US veto in the Security Council. Observer status is one step up from Palestine's current position as a permanent observer. The change would allow Palestinians to participate in General Assembly debates and may open the door for the Palestinian Authority to sign treaties such as the Rome Statute that set up the International Criminal Court, a UN agency. In the ICC, the Palestinians would have a say in exposing Israel's wide-ranging violations in the occupied territories and might even help prosecute Israeli officials. However, even this lowering of expectations by Abbas which he outlined in his General Assembly address might not work. Even though he is seeking a limited upgrade from observer “entity” to “non-member state” in the 193-member General Assembly where no nation holds veto power, that, too, is opposed by the US and Israel, which say any issue of statehood can be resolved only through negotiations. It would alienate the US, the UN's biggest financial contributor and a key aid donor to the Palestinians. The often cited example: When the Palestinian Authority was accepted last year into the UN cultural agency UNESCO, the US response was to cut off funding that provides almost a quarter of the agency's budget. Tightening the screws, American law would require a similar cut off of funds for any UN agency that grants the Palestinians the same status as member states. So even the lowering of aspirations is a problem and if denied could be one more blow for the Palestinians who are seeking UN help because they cannot achieve statehood in a moribund peace process made so by the US and Israel. Look at how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intentionally snubbed Abbas in his UN speech Thursday. Abbas raised a slew of serious charges against Israel, including Palestinians facing a campaign of ethnic cleansing in which they are being denied full access to houses of worship, schools, hospitals and housing. But Abbas might as well have been talking to himself. Even though Netanyahu spoke almost right after Abbas, the prime minister gave hardly a mention to the Palestinian problem, preferring instead to talk about Iran and the alleged nuclear weapons he says it is close to acquiring. The parallels between Netanyahu and Colin Powell, another official who at the UN made his case for war by using illustrations, are uncanny and ominous. Netanyahu used an ABC How-To diagram; Powell used Power Point. America soon went to war against Iraq; Israel is close to launching one of its own against Iran. In the meantime, Israel lambasts one country for its nuclear program, yet possesses nuclear bombs and has never signed the NPT. Also meanwhile, Netanyahu gave Abbas short shrift by keeping the Palestinian issue on the sidelines of the UN debates and on hold in fossilized negotiations.
