Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: The Dangers of a Premature Palestinian State

http://harvardnsj.com/2011/10/the-dangers-of-a-premature-palestinian-state/
 
 
The Dangers of a Premature Palestinian State
Posted by NSJ
 
By Lee Hiromoto –
 
Contrary to the pessimism of some, the Arab-Israeli peace process has
come quite far since Israel won its independence in 1948. In 1967, the
Arab League declared in the Khartoum Resolution that there would be
“no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, [and] no negotiations
with it.” The Palestinian National Charter of 1968 set out to “destroy
the Zionist and imperialist presence” and declared that Israel’s
establishment was “entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of
time.”
 
Yet by 1993, Yasser Arafat, in a letter to Yitzhak Rabin, clearly
stated that the Palestine Liberation Organization “recognizes the
right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.” In 2002,
the same Arab league that emphatically enunciated the three no’s in
1967 embraced a peace plan that would provide for “normal relations
with Israel.”
 
This progress, while neither perfect nor uniformly linear, has brought
tangible good to the Palestinian people. The process initiated by
Arafat and Rabin led to the creation of autonomous areas in the West
Bank where Palestinians were—for the first time in modern recollection—
allowed to govern themselves under the aegis of an internationally
recognized proto-sovereignty.
 
Once unthinkable, Israeli and Palestinian security forces now
cooperate to fight terror in the West Bank. Formerly ubiquitous
military checkpoints have been removed, and the Palestinian economy
has enjoyed a boom in recent years. From a new movie theatre in Nablus
(the first to open in a Palestinian city this millennium) to a five-
start hotel in Ramallah, the tangible gains brought by Arab-Israeli
engagement speak to the power of dialogue.
 
But the sudden and unilateral imposition of a Palestinian state onto
Israel by the U.N. (as sought by President Abbas) could end up
destabilizing the region and undoing the substantial gains made thus
far in the process of Arab-Israeli reconciliation. The danger presents
itself on two levels:  the possibility of Islamist terror originating
from a Palestinian state and the increased risk of regional conflict
between Israel and its neighbors.
 
The Danger Of A Failed Palestinian Terror State
 
First, a hasty Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank (Gaza, the other
major Palestinian population center, has been devoid of an Israeli
presence since 2005) under international pressure would embolden the
extremist elements that have been kept in check by Israeli security
forces. At the moment, the Israeli presence keeps the peace to the
benefit of both Palestinian and Israeli communities in the region by
arresting West Bank terrorists and stopping the trafficking of illegal
weapons.
 
History shows that the sudden withdrawal of this stabilizing force can
have deadly consequences.
 
Unilateral Israeli withdrawals from southern Lebanon in 2000 and the
Gaza Strip in 2005—infused with the hope of peace—led only to further
conflict. Indeed, Israel was forced to take military action on both
fronts not long after those optimistic pullouts. Israel’s 2006 Lebanon
War was provoked by the Lebanese Shiite group Hizbullah, which
kidnapped two Israeli soldiers from the country’s northern border with
Lebanon. In Gaza, Hamas violently seized power in a 2007 coup and
sanctioned a bombardment of thousands of rockets and mortar shells
that led Israel to carry out a crushing air and ground campaign in the
Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009. Both Hamas (in Gaza) and
Hizbullah (in Lebanon) receive Iranian sponsorship.
 
Palestine And The Danger Of Regional Escalation
 
Second, the hurried creation of a Palestinian state in a time of
regional upheaval raises the stakes in any future conflict between
Israel and the Palestinians by increasing the likelihood that other
Arab actors, currently facing unprecedented popular pressure, will
take advantage of Palestinian independence to justify direct
intervention against Israel.
 
Such a conflict could start if a vulnerable Israel, now bereft of the
West Bank and only ten miles across at its narrowest point, decides to
take defensive military action against, say, the development and
import of West Bank projectile weapons. Or the Palestinians could
employ a pretextual justification, such as a sluggish or insufficient
(as they see it) evacuation of Israeli settlement communities from a
newly-sovereign Palestine, as an excuse for military action against
Israel. In fact, a rushed U.N. decision to unilaterally recognize a
Palestinian state without coordinating an Israeli withdrawal would put
Israel, which has over 200,000 citizens living in the West Bank, in
violation of Palestinian borders and give the Palestinians casus belli—
a reason to go to war against Israel.
 
While itself undesirable, an intensified Israel-Palestine conflict
threatens to embroil the entire region. Regardless of how a clash
between Israel and a Palestinian state begins, other Arab countries
could invoke the Arab League’s joint defense pact and “the inherent
right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack
occurs against a Member of the United Nations,” recognized in Article
51 of the U.N. Charter, to justify joining military action against
Israel. Since the Palestine is not currently a U.N. member state, the
collective self-defense provision of Article 51 does not apply to
them. But it would to a U.N.-recognized Palestine.
 
Thus, under a colorable reading international law, the creation of a
Palestinian state would empower anxious Arab leaders to attack Israel
in defense of Palestine, thus appeasing the newly-empowered democratic
masses that have driven the Arab Spring. Since this action will have a
plausible legitimacy under international law, there is less risk of
global pushback like that which helped take down Gaddafi in Libya.
 
First among these dangerous potential actors is Egypt, whose military
has been well-stocked by American military aid. The largest Arab state
is currently ruled by a junta willing to use force in its eagerness
(somewhat ironically) to avoid a popular uprising like that which
swept out longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak and brought them to power.
Despite the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, recent events
like the mob attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo and the new
Egyptian government’s failure to secure oil pipelines from the Sinai
Peninsula to Israel indicate a strong anti-Israel sentiment in Egypt.
For a young and insecure Egyptian regime, intervention on behalf of
the Palestinians against Israel would be tempting way to placate the
masses.
 
For Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, a member of a minority Muslim
sect who has confronted bloody uprisings this year, a glorious
campaign to retake the Golan Heights would be a national unifier that
might stave off the predicted end to his regime. Jordan, which shares
a long border with Israel and has a large ethnically Palestinian
population, is also facing reformist pressure that recently led King
Abdullah II to fire the kingdom’s most recent prime minister.
Additionally, terrorist groups like Hizbullah (on Israel’s northern
border next to Syria) and those in Gaza (directly on Israel’s southern
front) have thousands of Katyusha and Qassam rockets at their disposal
and a need to periodically renew their street credibility via attacks
on Israel.
 
Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arab states have come far on the
rocky path to peace, to the point where even Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu (credited by some for derailing prior efforts to
create a Palestinian state) now supports the establishment of a
Palestinian state. Instead of tempting conflict during a time of
regional upheaval—especially dangerous given the nuclear weapons
Israel is widely believed to possess—all parties should return to the
direct negotiations advocated by Israel’s government and President
Obama that are the safest and most effective path to the realization
of Palestinian national aspirations. In a tense region awash in
change, the international community must move cautiously to avoid
further igniting the flames of conflict and violence in the Middle
East.
 
 

 Posted by NSJ
 
Dopo 43 anni, la progressiva espropriazione di territorio, il nulla di 
fatto dei colloqui di pace, il solo titolo dell'articolo fa ridere.
 
-- 
Sostieni Rete ECO
 
http://rete-eco.it/it/sostienici.html
 
 

 fatto dei colloqui di pace, il solo titolo dell'articolo
 
E quindi Persio manco lo legge. Pero' lo commenta. Poi si lamenta che
gli danno del pirla.