Buying Into Palestinian Statehood

Article 2. Herald Tribune Buying Into Palestinian Statehood Yossi Alpher, Colette Avital, Shlomo Gazit, and Mark Heller June 24, 201 1— Instead of wasting time and energy trying to revive a moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the United States and European Union should take another look at the Palestinian initiative to seek U.N. recognition in September. What is described in some quarters as a recipe for new strife and confrontation can actually be leveraged into a win-win situation for Israelis, Palestinians and the world. The Palestinians under Mahmoud Abbas want the United Nations to grant them a sovereign state based on the 1967 boundaries with East Jerusalem as its capital. That’s all. It is not asking the U.N. to solve the refugee /right-of-return issue or to determine who owns the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It is opting to convert an intractable conflict between a state and a liberation movement into a state-to- state conflict with manageable parameters. Why not offer the Palestinians what they want, but add elements that could render the resolution acceptable to a majority of Israelis? Israel wants acceptance as a Jewish state with its recognized capital in Jerusalem. It needs assurances regarding the nature and priorities of future negotiations, with the truly intractable issues postponed to a later phase. It needs solid security arrangements, understandings regarding Hamas rule in Gaza, and a viable incentive from an Arab world that has long offered to reward it for moving forward with the Palestinians. Here are the components of a possible “win-win” U.N. resolution regarding Palestinian statehood: HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_032177