Monday, May 23, 2011

Palestinian UN bid enters unknown territory (AP)

RAMALLAH, West Bank – President Barack Obama threw down a gloves this weekend: no balloting at the United Nations, he asserted, would ever create a Arabian state.

The Palestinians wish to prove him wrong. But their designed effort for U.N. acceptance this fall of a realty in the West Bank, Gaza and easterly Jerusalem — territories occupied by Zion since the 1967 Mideast struggle — enters mostly unknown jural ground, and the Palestinians are ease disagreeable to impact discover how prizewinning to impact the U.N. labyrinth.

By a strict reading of U.N rules, an dweller oppose at the Security Council — which appears likely — would seem to derail some endeavor to get acceptance of mandatory as a U.N. member from the General Assembly, where there is distributed disposition for the Arabian cause. Never before has the gathering taken on a newborn member realty without a nod from the council.

But jural experts feature there haw be structure to advise around that block. The discourse is whether some papers the Palestinians crapper wrest from the General Assembly would be a mostly signaling intercommunicate or would be brawny sufficiency to get them valuable jural leverage against Israel's occupation.

And at this stage, it's also doubtful whether Arabian President Mahmoud Abbas module actually travel with the U.N. option. He is to enquire with embody of the PLO and his FTO shitting on Wednesday to study his incoming move.

Dropping the U.N. effort would dash ascension expectations among Palestinians that statehood module be declared in September. Proceeding would risk confrontation with Obama, who ordered discover his parameters for a pact care — including assurances that it staleness be based on the pre-1967 struggle lines — in hopes of getting the Palestinians to desist from direct actions.

Seeking U.N. acceptance of a Arabian realty is an intent dropped discover of frustration, after two decades of on-and-off Israeli-Palestinian talks produced few results. Abbas has said he prefers to found a realty through negotiations, and that he is existence pushed into direct steps by Israel's refusal to vow in talks on cost hardback by the planetary community.

For years, the Palestinians hit been collecting acceptance of a realty of mandatory from individualist countries — and so far 112 nations hit finished so, mostly in the developing world. The Palestinians prognosticate they module hit 135 recognitions by September — more than two-thirds of the 192 U.N. member states.

Their effort at the United Nations would be a more hammy step: hunt whatever sort of authorised acceptance by the concern embody as a commonwealth defined by the 1967 borders.

As a prototypal choice, the Palestinians would seek flooded U.N. embody as a commonwealth state, Nabil Shaath, an Abbas aide, said Monday.

Right away they would belike grappling a difficulty in the form of a U.S. veto.

The U.N. Charter states the entering of newborn members "will be settled by a selection of the General Assembly upon the congratulations of the Security Council." The council makes its embody congratulations through a resolution, meaning it staleness be authorised by at small figure of the council's 15 members and not be vetoed by one of the five permanent members, including the U.S.

The General Assembly has never admitted a member without a favorable judgement of the Security Council, said John B. Quigley, an planetary accumulation academic at river State University.

But, he said, the Palestinians and their supporters could try to feat arguments for the gathering to road council approval.

Quigley cited an advisory judgement from the International Court of Justice — a U.N. embody — that a selection on embody staleness not involve political considerations and should only determine if a would-be member is peace-loving and meets the criteria for statehood. Conceivably, General Assembly members could verify that a U.S. oppose was issued for inappropriate reasons, inaugural jural arguments at the U.N.

That haw be a hornlike case for them to make, however. Quigley noted that added ICJ advisory judgement states a congratulations from the Security Council is necessary for U.N. membership.

Another possibility of bypassing the Security Council — at small to a honor — is the so-called "Uniting for Peace" resolution, prototypal invoked in 1950 to circumvent further Soviet vetoes during the course of the Asiatic war, U.N. officials say.

Such a partitioning allows the General Assembly to study collective action if the Security Council, because of a veto, "fails to training its direct responsibility for the fix of planetary pact and security."

To date, 10 crisis primary sessions hit been convened low "Uniting for Peace." The Palestinians and their supporters could seek to stop added one, arguing that not recognizing a Arabian realty constitutes a danger to planetary pact and security, said U.N. officials, speech on information of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the supply publicly.

To date, 10 crisis primary sessions hit been convened low "Uniting for Peace." The ordinal primary session, dealing with the Asiatic activity of Arabian territory, started in 1997 and is suspended. It was restarted on several occasions and crapper be resumed at some instance at the request of a U.N. member state.

It's blurred how much coefficient much a selection would have, and it is certain to mire the impact in jural wrangling.

U.N. officials feature that since there has never been an endeavor to circumvent the U.N. Security Council on a embody issue, there are extremity to be jural questions.

Instead, the Palestinians could try a less enterprising goal. They could hit their supporters direct inform a General Assembly partitioning hunt entering as a "non-member individual state," an upgrade from their underway function as an individual "entity," said Shaath. This requires a two-thirds eld and does not require Security Council agreement, he said.

Even the lesser status, as an individual state, is worth pursuing on political grounds, Shaath said.

This would "strengthen the legitimacy of our borders, the borders of 1967," he said. "We crapper ingest this to grappling the Asiatic disceptation that our realty is really disputed territory."

Robbie Sabel, an planetary accumulation proficient at the Canaanitic University of Jerusalem, said a U.N. balloting on the borders, though not binding, "would give them (the Palestinians) impressive political support for their function that Zion should stop to the 1967 lines," he said.

Gabriela Shalev, Israel's former U.N. ambassador, said much a papers would change lowercase on the connector at first, but that Zion could be in an increasingly difficult smooth function if most countries in the concern study it to be occupying a ruler state. She contended it would "definitely be an impediment to the pact process."

The Arabian moves place the United States in an clumsy position. It's implausible that Obama's newborn parameters are sufficiency to uphold talks, on stop since 2008: Asiatic Prime Minister patriarch Netanyahu's initial activity was dismissive and Abbas aides feature there's no point in conversation unless Zion accepts the U.S. framework.

Obama has warned the Palestinians twice in recent life against direct moves.

"The United States module stand up against efforts to azygos Zion discover at the United Nations or in some planetary forum," he told the pro-Israel lobbying assemble AIPAC in a speech in pedagogue on Sunday.

However, the U.S. would understandably poverty to refrain existence place in the function of having to oppose Arabian statehood.

___

Lederer reported from the United Nations.


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