Hamas ploy – keep it on the battlefield

In just over a week’s time the United Nations is scheduled to vote on whether to upgrade the status of Palestine to that of a non-member observer State. On the face of it, this seems rather symbolic, regularising a situation that already exists. Palestine will have no more rights to do anything at the international body than it currently enjoys.

Its representatives can already address the General Assembly, take part in meetings and co-sponsor resolutions. They are not able to vote, or become voting members of any UN Committee. None of this will change.

But symbolism means a lot in Israel and the fact that Palestine would be accorded the status of a ‘state’, something that Israel has steadfastly refused to accept, is seen as a significant setback by the Government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That is why a few days ago Netanyahu seemed ready to scrap the Oslo Accords, agreed by former leaders Yasser Arafat (Palestine) and Yitzak Rabin (Israel) almost two decades ago, that gave the Palestinians some degree of autonomy and promised more in the future.

What has generally been forgotten in the current turmoil descending on the Middle East was that the threatened stick was followed by the proffered carrot.

A day later Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman put forward a draft document offering the Palestinians immediate recognition of statehood within provisional borders as an incentive for dropping their UN bid.

In other words, Israel was trying to wrest the question of statehood out of the international arena and back to face-to-face negotiations with the Government of Mahmoud Abbas on the West Bank.

It was then that the Hamas rockets began to fly.

Why? Because any moves along this line would have left Hamas isolated in the Gaza Strip and enhanced Abbas’ standing as the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people. Hamas always has and continues to call for the destruction of the Jewish State – a ‘push them into the sea’ mentality, which is quietly being discarded in many Arab capitals.

Hamas’ resort to arms is a calculated ploy to remove the Middle East peace process off the negotiating table and back to the battlefield, where it knows it can garner world attention and sympathy.

It is now inevitable that the UN vote will go ahead on November 29 and that Palestinian recognition will pass with an overwhelming majority in the veto-proof General Assembly. As I said at the beginning it will mean very little, apart from setting back the peace process generally, which has been Hamas’ aim from the very beginning.