Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas last week added to the vocabulary of political democracy, calling for the "Palestinian Spring." It is a take-off on the uprising of ordinary people against generations of dictatorship and deprivation by brutal Arab leaders. As a follow-through on his designation of the 70 years of Palestinian struggle to acquire what they consider parts of their homeland from occupation by Israel, President Abbas called on the United Nations to recognise the independent state of Palestine. The modern history of the conflict between Israel and Palestine goes back to the post- WWII era when Israelis from around the world began returning to what they believed to be their homeland, given to them by their God. Increasingly, and especially since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israel has occupied larger and larger chunks of the territory of Palestine.
It is almost pointless to begin to say which side engaged in violence against the other side and which one reacted. The only certainty here is that Israel, with the backing of the United States, has had the firepower which it has liberally used against the Palestinians-approximately 40 UN resolutions have condemned Israel for such action. One estimate is that the Palestinian people now reside in a mere 20 per cent of the territory that comprised their homeland before the 1967 encroachment and occupation. Today the issues are lodged between the request for statehood recognition by the Palestinians and the insistence by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a return to negotiations without any preconditions. Back of the concern of the Israelis is what they see as the intention of the Palestinians to deny their country the right to a secure and assured status as a nation-state. In his address to the UN General Assembly, US President Barack Obama, obviously chastened by the need for re-election and understanding the power of the Jewish lobby and its influence on votes, urged the sides to return to a US constructed peace process.
However, the Palestinians have made the point that it is a process that has gone on for 20 years without reward to either side.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians have pointed out that Israel continues with the establishment of Jewish settlements in what the Palestinians say is their territory on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel does not deny the territorial claim but says it is necessary to act as a buffer zone against Palestinian attacks.
The Israeli position also reminds that in 2000 and 2008, Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert promised to stop the building of settlements and return Palestine to territory approximating the pre-1967 demarcations. According to the Israelis, the Palestinians refused to accept the offer, wanting Palestinians to be free to return home to what has become Israel. Critics have been savage against the US President for his speech, which they say one-sidedly recognised the hurt of Israel over the decades while ignoring the displacement of and brutality against the Palestinians.
The US has made it clear that it intends to veto at the Security Council the Palestinian request for recognition as a state. Based on the very vocal support given to President Abbas at the General Assembly, Palestine could receive the backing at the Assembly level for its alternative demand of enhanced observer member status. Meanwhile, President Abbas has reacted without enthusiasm to the proposal that the quartet of the US, Russia, the UN and the European Union be the catalyst to get the negotiations going. The immediate outcome could be a dangerous deadlock with the US-Israel peace process versus the Palestinians, possibly with the support of a number of countries requiring concessions such as a return to the pre-1967 borders before negotiations.