EFTA01169316

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1 October, 2011 
Article 1. The National Interest 
The Palestinians' Next Move 
Rashid Khalidi 
The Daily Star 
The new Abbas takes his distancefrom the old 
Netanyahu 
Hani al-Masri 
Article 2. 
Article 3. Foreign Policy 
Where Do We Go from Here? 
Hussein Ibish 
Article 4. 
Article 5. 
Article 6. 
New York Review of Books 
Obama's Palestinian Veto: Let's Be Honest 
Henry Siegman 
The Christian Science Monitor 
An Interview with Mahmoud Abbas 
Raghida  Dergham 
Project Syndicate 
Has Palestine Won? 
Shlomo Ben-Ami 
Article 7. 
Article 8. 
The Independent 
Will Israel still exist in 2048? 
Mary Dejevsky 
Real-Clear-World 
Erdogan Should Mind His Own Glass House 
Hillel Fradkin & Lewis Libby 
EFTA01169316

The National Interest 
The Palestinians' Next Move 
Rashid Khalidi 
September 30, 2011 -- As the dust settles after last week's 
"showdown" at the United Nations over the Palestinian application 
for membership, several initial conclusions can be drawn. 
First, the United States now is thoroughly out of touch with most of 
the international community when it comes to Palestine and Israel. It 
has positioned itself to the right of the most right-wing, pro-settler 
government in Israeli history. This was reflected in the joyful 
reception of President Obama's speech by Israeli prime minister 
Netanyahu and his right-wing foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, 
as well as in the Israel lobby's satisfied response to Obama's caving 
in to Israeli demands all along the line. 
In an almost surreal display of pandering, Republican presidential 
candidates—notably Texas governor Rick Perry—disparaged the 
president for "appeasing" the Palestinians and thereby betraying 
Israel. This rhetoric came despite the fact that Obama single-
handedly sabotaged the Palestinians' UN bid while publicly lecturing 
them and the entire General Assembly on the suffering of Israelis 
without so much as a word acknowledging Israeli occupation, 
violence and settlements—not to mention the Palestinian suffering 
caused by these American-supported policies. Obama's domestic 
electioneering in the face of a historic demand by the long-suffering 
Palestinians was not lost on the world. Taken in the context of the 
Arab Spring and its wave of popular demands for human and political 
rights, it means that the United States has lost all credibility as an 
honest broker in this conflict. 
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The second conclusion to be drawn is that after two decades of the 
U.S. behaving as "Israel's lawyer," the two-state solution is now 
dead. It has been buried by forty-four years of unceasing Israeli 
colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem under the 
benevolent gaze of nine successive U.S. administrations. The most 
recent in a long line of boastful Israeli announcements of further 
settlement construction in occupied Arab East Jerusalem last week is 
a perfect illustration of this truth. Despite the usual expression of 
"disappointment" from the White House and the State Department, 
the United States has, in fact, again acquiesced to the illegal 
colonization of more occupied Palestinian territory. This served as a 
ceremonial last nail in the coffin of the disastrous American-led 
process that since the beginning of peace negotiations in Madrid in 
1991 oversaw and facilitated the near tripling of the illegal Israeli 
settler population to well over half a million and the imposition of 
severe restrictions on the movement of over 4 million Palestinians. 
For those of us who have watched this "peace" process unfold since 
then, the status quo should perhaps be seen not so much as signifying 
the failure of the process but rather as underlining its sole purpose. 
As Mouin Rabbani put it [3] in the London Review of Books, "the 
so-called peace process is working precisely as designed, to give 
political cover to Israeli colonization and maintain America's 
diplomatic monopoly." Though the time of the two-state solution has 
passed, it is undoubtedly time for the U.S. government to be pushed 
aside as sole mediator. 
The final conclusion to be drawn is that the Palestinian leadership is 
at a crossroads: It has taken a long-overdue first step to re-
internationalize Palestine's struggle for liberty and self-determination 
and to take matters out of the hands of American diplomats who for 
decades have systematically advanced Israel's interests at the expense 
of the Palestinians. The attempt to produce more objective 
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stewardship of negotiations by taking the Palestinian case to the UN 
will clearly fail in the short term due to U.S. opposition. 
Nevertheless, it was relatively successful in galvanizing international 
support for the Palestinians almost everywhere outside of the fact-
free bubble that is the DC beltway and much of the mainstream 
media. 
The question now is what will the Palestinians' next step be? It is 
clear where the United States stands and will continue to stand, 
certainly until November 2012 if not long afterwards. For all the 
significant changes in perceptions of the conflict at the grassroots 
level in the United States, the continued power of the Israel lobby in 
Congress shows that on the political level nothing has changed. As 
far as Israel is concerned, even a leftward shift is unlikely to bring 
about meaningful change to decades of Labor, Likud and Kadima-
supported occupation and settlement policies, at least not in the near 
term. 
Abbas' speech at the UN, therefore, was only the beginning of what 
many Palestinians agree needs to be a new long-term strategy for 
national liberation. The focus of this new strategy will have to return 
from a two-decade hiatus at a rigged negotiating table to its original 
and most representative form: popular, grassroots, nonviolent 
struggle on the ground and among Palestinians in exile. The good 
news for the Palestinians is that the infrastructure for such a struggle 
is already in place after years of nonviolent protest in the villages of 
the West Bank and could grow with the recently minted model of the 
Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions to consider. A highly coordinated 
and truly massive campaign of active nonviolence could shock the 
conscience of the world and energize Palestinians everywhere. The 
bad news for the Israelis—who have brutally repressed nonviolent 
protest in villages such as Bilin, Nilin, Nebi Saleh, Walaja and many 
other places over the past six years—is that, according to Ministry of 
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Defense political-military chief Amos Gilad, "we [the Israelis] don't 
do Gandhi very well." 
In the coming months we will see what the Palestinian leadership will 
do (both those in Gaza and those in Ramallah) and whether they can 
succeed in reunifying the divided Palestinian national movement; 
how brazenly the Israeli government will provoke the Palestinians; 
and whether the Palestinians, the Arabs and especially the 
international community will be up to the challenge of wresting from 
the American grip the keys to a negotiating process in need of almost 
complete remodeling on the basis of international law and UN 
resolutions, after decades of American mishandling. 
In the meantime, should President Obama find the time to reflect 
upon his decision to forsake Palestinian freedom in favor of 
pandering to the Israel lobby, he would do well to remember the 
following thought from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: "There comes a 
time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor 
politic...but one must take it because it is right." 
Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor Arab Studies at Columbia 
and author of The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle 
for Statehood (Beacon, 2007). He was an advisor to the Palestinian 
delegation in Madrid and DC from 1991-1993. 
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C, 
The Daily Star 
The new Abbas takes his distancefrom the 
old Netanyahu 
Hani al-Masri 
September 30, 2011 -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas 
appears to be a new man. What led to this change? Since taking 
office, he has always said that only negotiations can lead to the 
establishment of the state. When the talks faltered or faced an 
obstacle, he often said: "The alternative to negotiations is the 
negotiations." When Abbas set conditions for the resumption of 
negotiations, these quickly became mere demands. Even in recent 
days, he repeated that negotiations were his first, second and third 
choice. 
When Abbas announced his intention to go to the United Nations, the 
strong U.S. opposition meant that even some supporters did not 
believe he would follow through. His speech at the U.N. resolved 
their doubts, however, and raised the ceiling of the Palestinian 
position. 
Abbas' speech derived strength from the justice of the Palestinian 
cause and determination to proceed with the application for full 
membership of the state of Palestine to the Security Council, despite 
Israeli and U.S. pressure and threats as well as "suggestions" from 
Palestinian, Arab and international friends. The president refused to 
compromise by making a request for non-member status at the U.N. 
General Assembly — either within the package presented by French 
President Nicholas Sarkozy or as a first step followed by the 
submission of the application to the Security Council. 
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The "old" Abbas would have agreed to resume negotiations on the 
basis of the European initiative, but he preferred the challenge, 
despite the risks. What lion has grown in the heart of Abbas? What 
made him stick to his terms for the resumption of negotiations? 
A number of factors and causes transformed the president into a new 
national leader, militant in his demands and willing to risk losing the 
patronage of the U.S. Negotiations have reached an impasse because 
of the intransigence of the Israeli government led by Benjamin 
Netanyahu. Most surveys in Israel suggest that the Israeli government 
will live out its term and that even new elections will produce a 
government at least as radical as the current one. 
To make matters worse, the U.S. administration reneged on its 
promises and U.S. President Barack Obama now seems more 
favorable to Israel than any previous president. Estimates are that 
amid the increasingly feverish competition for the presidency, the 
U.S. — where candidates are competing over who offers more support 
for Israel — cannot be expected to exercise any serious pressure on 
Israel until after the U.S. presidential elections. Without this pressure, 
there will be no resumption of talks and no peace agreement. 
Abbas has concluded that the next two years, at least, will see no 
progress in the peace process. This period will be sufficient for the 
Israelis to create a fait accompli, destroy the Palestinian dream of 
statehood and undermine the Palestinian Authority until its collapse. 
But the "Arab spring" is the most determinant factor in Abbas' 
change. It has removed the weight of Egyptian President Hosni 
Mubarak's regime from his chest and opened up the possibility for 
Palestinians to think of new options. Affirming the Arab quest for 
democracy and considering regional and international changes 
(especially the deterioration in Egyptian-Israeli and Turkish-Israeli 
relationships), Abbas sensed it was time for a Palestinian spring. 
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Still, the solution is not at the door. We must work hard and make 
one last attempt to end the stalemate in the peace process by changing 
the rules of negotiations, which requires real change in the balance of 
power on the ground. It is no longer possible to address the blockage 
in talks with the means tried and failed over the years. 
Abbas dreams of achieving statehood. When he began to see that 
dream slip away, he sought to leave the scene as a hero and a 
stubborn defender of Palestinian rights. He wanted to refute the 
charges of weakness that have dogged him, particularly after his 
decision to postpone the U.N. Goldstone report that accused Israel of 
war crimes in Gaza. One cannot explain Abbas' position without this 
personal dimension. He does not want to carry a gun and die a 
martyr, like his predecessor Yasser Arafat. But he has chosen to stand 
fast and use popular resistance to try to achieve a settlement on the 
basis of clear inalienable benchmarks. Either that, or he will develop 
a new strategy inspired by the spirit of spring in the region, one that 
unites Palestinians and opens the window of hope that they will 
achieve their goals of freedom, return and independence. 
As such, Abbas' speech expressed the historical suffering, hope and 
aspirations of Palestinians, and was answered with warm applause 
and standing ovations. 
In comparison, Netanyahu's speech was weak and worn-out, arguing 
in a lawyerly way about unfairness. He then moved from attack to 
defense, wearing the clothes of an innocent. He said, on the one hand, 
that he was keen on peace and called for the resumption of 
negotiations. Then he said that Palestine was "the land of Israel" and 
that Palestinians have foiled all peace initiatives because they refuse 
to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and the owners of this land. 
Netanyahu repeated a broken record about Israel's willingness for 
permanent peace and the generous gestures it has extended, only to 
be met by terrorism and Palestinian inertia. Israel was a small state 
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surrounded by enemies who wanted to destroy it, he said, insisting on 
the primacy of security. He claimed that Israel sought a Palestinian 
state, as if it has not eliminated all chances for that through its 
settlement expansion, apartheid wall, the separation and isolation of 
Jerusalem, and the siege and aggression against Gaza. 
Netanyahu said that the concept of security means that a 
demilitarized Palestinian state should include long-term security 
arrangements, including the continued presence of Israeli forces and 
control of borders, air and water so that the area cannot be used as a 
base for launching rockets at targets in Israel. 
Has Netanyahu forgotten that the achievement of peace is the best, 
fastest and cheapest way to achieve security? Israel can continue its 
occupation, relying on force and military security and the lack of 
Arab and international development as deterrence. But for how long? 
Israel often says that it cannot afford to lose a single war, but its 
ability to win wars is decreasing. It is no longer able to achieve 
lightning-quick victory far from the home front. Given the new 
variables in the Arab and international sphere, will Israel not regret 
making peace once adverse conditions are forced upon it? 
The new Abbas has become even more removed from the old 
Netanyahu, so that the gap between the Palestinian and Israeli 
attitudes has become wider. We cannot now turn back the clock and 
return to sterile negotiations. 
What is needed is to allow the new factors and rules to change the 
balance of power, then for a framework to be set for the peace 
process. Statements are not enough. There can be no achievement at 
the negotiating table until action is imposed on the land of the 
conflict. 
Hani al-Masri is a columnist for several Palestinian newspapers. 
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AniCIC 3. 
Foreign Policy 
Where Do We Go from Here? 
Hussein Ibish 
September 30, 2011 -- In a perfunctory meeting on Wednesday 
morning, Sept. 28, as expected, and per its usual procedure for 
dealing with would-be new United Nations members since the late 
1960s, the Security Council referred the Palestinian application to 
one of its standing committees. The committee -- which meets and 
votes in secret and requires unanimity to refer the matter back to the 
Security Council -- is scheduled to begin considering the application 
on Friday morning. The membership process usually takes weeks, but 
can take only days (as with the most recent U.N. member, South 
Sudan) or years (as in the case of Kuwait). Neither the committee nor 
the Security Council is under any specific obligation to act on the 
request in a limited time frame, so the process theoretically could 
drag on indefinitely. 
Because the required nine-vote Security Council majority is by no 
means yet ensured, and because the United States is publicly 
committed to vetoing a Security Council vote if one ever takes place 
anyway, full U.N. membership is effectively barred for the 
Palestinians under the present circumstances. Therefore, the 
application will have to serve as leverage to achieve something else if 
it is to produce anything meaningful. So what options does this leave 
the Palestinians? Let's take a look at five, moving from the least to 
the most confrontational: 
1) Declare moral and political victory and move on. 
The Palestinians have made their moral and legal case for statehood 
in President Mahmoud Abbas's speech and their formal application. 
And if the established international peace process should decisively 
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fail, they do have other options, no matter how risky. The Security 
Council referral to the committee buys everyone time to look for 
compromises, particularly given that the Palestinian membership bid 
cannot succeed. If they choose not to press the issue in the Security 
Council, the Palestinians could seek advantages in other venues, as 
follows. 
2) Work with the Quartet on more advantageous language for 
renewed negotiations. It is highly significant that the Middle East 
Quartet -- the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the 
U.N. Secretariat -- issued a statement in conjunction with Abbas's 
address and the Palestinian application. The statement showed that 
the Quartet has not resolved the differences that emerged in its ranks 
this year, particularly over whether Palestinians should be required to 
recognize Israel as a "Jewish state." But it reasserted the importance 
and viability of the established processes. 
Working with the Palestinians and the Israelis separately, the Quartet 
could issue a statement laying out the framework for new 
negotiations, timetables, and even clearer terms of reference that 
might provide the Palestinians with a significant diplomatic 
achievement -- even if the renewal of direct talks with a reasonable 
prospect of success has to wait until political circumstances in the 
United States, in Israel, and among the Palestinians become more 
favorable. 
3) Pursue a General Assembly resolution in cooperation with the EU. 
The Palestinians are well positioned to win almost any of a number of 
possible resolutions they could bring before the General Assembly, 
but they can do this in either a cooperative or a confrontational 
manner with Western states. They could work with the European 
Union, which is badly and uncomfortably divided on the issue, to 
craft language that Europeans could unite behind and that would 
protect them from the most serious American and Israeli retaliation, 
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as well as provide them significant diplomatic advances. Many 
important EU member states, particularly France and Spain, are 
supportive of Palestinian nonmember U.N. observer status, but others 
are concerned that this would provide Palestinians' with access to the 
International Criminal Court and other law enforcement mechanisms 
to pursue charges against Israel. Some Europeans have been working 
on a new legal status for Palestine that would be an upgrade from the 
PLO observer mission but would protect Israel from potentially 
facing such charges. 
4) Pursue a General Assembly resolution independently. 
Palestinians could independently pursue nonmember observer-state 
status, and they would no doubt have a majority to secure that. But 
this could precipitate a crisis not only with the United States -- which 
has threatened to cut funding to the Palestinian Authority (PA) -- but 
probably with some important European countries as well, the two 
main reliable external donors to the PA's annual budget. A crisis in 
relations with the Americans would also greatly complicate the 
resumption of negotiations, which Abbas and other Palestinian 
leaders acknowledge will be essential for the actual realization of an 
independent Palestine. 
The least aggressive independent action the Palestinians could pursue 
in the General Assembly would be a resolution acknowledging their 
right to statehood, but not securing nonmember state status. The most 
aggressive would be a resolution under the "Uniting for Peace" 
formula laid down in General Assembly Resolution 377A (1950), 
which was designed to overcome differences among Security Council 
permanent members on urgent matters. This would have to be tabled 
following a U.S. veto in the Security Council and would authorize 
member states to take coercive measures "to maintain or restore 
international peace and security." This might be interpreted as 
authorizing sanctions and other coercive measures against Israel. 
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However, numerous countries have had sanctions and boycotts 
against Israel and, indeed, the Palestinians for decades without the 
authorization of Resolution 377. More importantly, a 377 resolution 
would not address or enhance the question of Palestinian statehood or 
U.N. membership, and in that sense is completely off topic. 
5) Try to force a vote in the Security Council. 
The Palestinians are trying to secure commitments for a nine-vote 
majority and could try to force a vote on their application in the 
Security Council, even though they know this will ultimately be 
vetoed by the United States. Palestinians believe they have recently 
won over Gabon and Nigeria, meaning that, in addition to Brazil, 
China, India, Lebanon, Russia, and South Africa, they have eight 
commitments to vote yes. The rest of the members are likely to vote 
no or abstain. The Palestinians are focusing their efforts on Colombia 
and Bosnia, both of which will be difficult to convince. Alone among 
South American countries, Columbia does not recognize Palestine, 
and it has an important security relationship with Israel. Bosnia, 
which is a confederation of three ethnic communities, is divided on 
the matter, with Muslim Bosniaks and Croats supporting Palestinian 
membership but Serbs opposing it because of a potential similar 
application by Kosovo. 
If Palestinians cannot secure a nine-vote majority, then there is 
virtually no rationale for pressing their case in the Security Council. 
But if they can, some Palestinians and their allies argue that they 
could achieve a "moral victory" by forcing the United States to use its 
veto to block Palestinian membership. Such a moral victory, 
however, could come at a tremendous cost -- loss of U.S. and other 
Western aid, a souring of relations with the United States, and 
unspecified harsh retaliation threatened by numerous Israeli leaders, 
including potentially withholding Palestinian tax revenues that make 
up the bulk of the PA's annual budget. 
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For the moment, the Security Council has bought everyone time by 
referring the matter to the committee and has averted but not 
foreclosed a universally damaging confrontation. The various 
compromise tracks are very much in the Palestinians' interests, and 
there are promising signs they understand this. In defiance of all 
expectations, while the Israeli cabinet was unable to agree on any 
unified response to the Quartet's statement, by contrast, following a 
meeting of its executive committee, PLO Secretary-General Yasser 
Abed Rabbo welcomed the statement, though he also reiterated the 
Palestinian demand for a settlement freeze. 
If they play their cards right, Palestinian leaders will have made the 
moral case for their statehood, demonstrated that they do have 
options outside the established peace process, and secured new 
diplomatic leverage and political capital at home. But if they 
mishandle diplomacy in the coming weeks and months, they could 
face a very dangerous crisis in relations with the West, and especially 
with the United States, which they can ill afford. 
Hussein Ibish is a senior research fellow at the American Task Force 
on Palestine and blogs at www.Ibishblog.com. 
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New York Review of Books 
Obama's Palestinian Veto: Let's Be 
Honest 
Henry Siegman 
September 30, 2011 -- Over the past few days, much has been written 
about the Palestinian bid for UN recognition of its statehood and 
Washington's opposition to it. But the real importance of last week's 
events at the UN does not lie with the US response itself, but with the 
effect that response has had on the international community. For now, 
the Palestinian bid must be reviewed by a special UN committee, a 
process that will take weeks or months, thus postponing any 
immediate reckoning with the veto threatened by the Obama 
Administration. But for the first time, there is a broad recognition of 
the emptiness of the American claim that the US is uniquely qualified 
to bring the Israel-Palestine conflict to an end, and awareness that it 
may instead be the main obstacle to peace. 
This recognition marks a dramatic shift from only two years ago. In 
his speech in Cairo in June 2009, Obama seemed to announce a new 
American commitment to fairness, international law, and a two-state 
solution when he proclaimed that: 
the Palestinian people—Muslims and Christians—have suffered in 
pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years they've endured the 
pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, 
Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they 
have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations—
large and small—that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: 
The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America 
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will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for 
dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own. 
In his speech at the UN General Assembly last week, however, 
Obama reserved his compassion for those responsible for the 
Palestinians' misery. "Let's be honest," he said. "Israel is surrounded 
by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it," and Israeli 
citizens have been killed by suicide bombers on their buses. "These 
are facts, they can not be denied," he said. As noted by The New 
York Times's Ethan Bronner, the speech could have been written by 
an Israeli government official: "It said nothing about Israeli 
settlements, the 1967 lines, occupation, or Palestinian suffering, 
focusing instead on Israeli defense needs." 
Moreover, Obama's depiction of today's Israel was neither honest 
nor factual. Far from waging repeated wars on Israel, a decade ago its 
neighbors offered to establish full normal relations, including 
diplomatic recognition, trade and security—an offer Israel has to this 
day spurned and rejected. The earlier Arab hostility to Israel which 
Obama invoked is as relevant to Netanyahu's policies as the Soviet 
Union's hostility to America is to Obama's policies. 
There is little point in engaging Obama's apologia for Israel's 
rejectionism because from everything known about this man and his 
intelligence, no one in the UN audience thought he himself believes a 
word of it. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's Foreign Minister, was 
ecstatic, declaring "I am ready to sign onto this speech with both 
hands." Obama should ponder what he has wrought when his speech 
is acclaimed by a man whose racist views about Palestinians, and 
Arabs in general—having described Arab-Israeli members of the 
Knesset as a "fifth column," proposed forced population transfers to 
rid Israel of its non-Jewish population, and called for the execution of 
any Arab Member of Knesset who meets with Hamas officials—
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would have disqualified him from any governmental position in any 
other democratic country. 
But Obama's inconsistencies are only part of the problem. More 
troubling is his affirmation of a principle which, if taken seriously, 
would nail down the coffin into which US policy has placed the 
peace process. Obama has now declared repeatedly—before, during 
and following his speech—that the UN cannot give Palestinians their 
state. A Palestinian state can only result from an agreement reached 
in direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. 
The former editor of The Harvard Law Review surely knows that 
national self-determination is a "peremptory norm" in international 
law that obliges the UN to implement that right. Obama's principle 
would subject Palestinian self-determination to the approval of an 
Israeli government, a majority of whose ministers are charter 
members of the Israel's Knesset caucus that is committed to 
incorporating the entire West Bank into the Greater Land of Israel, 
notwithstanding Netanyahu's recent acceptance of a two state 
solution, a declaration that few Israelis take seriously. 
And yet, paradoxically, Obama's surrender to domestic political 
expediency in a presidential election campaign year has offered new 
hope for a change in direction away from the American-sponsored 
peace process. That peace process has been one of the great frauds of 
recent diplomatic history, having served as a cover for Israel's 
settlement policies in the West Bank. It has by now succeeded in 
establishing some 600,000 Israelis in former Palestinian areas of the 
West Bank and East Jerusalem. 
The international community has until now abided the US-led peace 
process out of the belief that precisely because of America's one-
sided support for Israel, it has unique leverage to persuade the Israeli 
government to accept a fair resolution of its conflict with the 
Palestinians. Obama's speech at the UN has finally shattered that 
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expectation. No one who was in that audience any longer believes 
that America is the indispensable party for an Israeli-Palestinian 
peace agreement. Indeed, it has become painfully clear that America 
is "uniquely" obstructing the process, using its influence in Western 
Europe and elsewhere to shield Israel from international pressures 
that might change its rejectionist stance. 
The conventional wisdom on this subject has maintained that Israelis 
must be reassured of their security to accept the compromises 
necessary for a peace accord. If threatened by sanctions or criticism 
seen by them as intended to challenge Israel's legitimacy, they will 
only harden their position and adopt a bunker mentality. It is useless 
wisdom, not because it is a false description of the Israeli reaction to 
outside pressure, but rather because the Israeli government acts no 
differently when no one is threatening it and when its interlocutors 
are moderates who unequivocally oppose violence and seek to come 
to an accommodation with Israel. 
As noted above, that is how Israeli governments have acted since 
2002 when the Arab countries offered to normalize relations with 
Israel, and that is how they continue to act even as terrorist threats 
have been largely eliminated in the West Bank—in great part because 
of the Palestinians' own efforts led by Palestinian Authority Prime 
Minister Salam Fayyad. 
As a result of this US-supported intransigence, there is now a 
growing openness by other members of the international community 
to bypass the US and pursue new avenues that offer greater hope for 
ending Israel's occupation and creating a Palestinian state. President 
Nicolas Sarkozy of France, for example, openly rejected America's 
position in his address to the UN immediately following Obama's 
speech. Russia was never fully aboard, and neither Egypt, nor Jordan, 
nor Saudi Arabia will again defer to America on this issue, as they 
have in the past. What hope there is now for rescuing a two-state 
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solution rests with this emerging disillusionment with America's 
leadership of the peace process and with the new openness to 
measures—by governments and civil society—that are far more 
likely to change Israel's cost/benefit calculations for its colonial 
ambitions. 
This new international backing for the Palestinians could easily be 
compromised, however, if Abbas is not more careful with his 
rhetoric. Having recognized the State of Israel within its 
internationally recognized 1967 lines, it is one thing for him to refuse 
to pronounce further on the Jewish character of the State of Israel, as 
Israeli leaders have asked him to do. However, his omission, in his 
UN speech, of any mention of a Jewish historical connection to the 
Holy Land while citing the Christian and Muslim connections 
prompts mistrust in the Palestinian leadership and risks the loss of 
international support. 
It must also be stressed that the international support for the 
Palestinian cause manifested at the UN will not bring about 
significant change if it does not continue to be inspired by 
Palestinians themselves. It was Abbas' speech, daring to say "no" to 
the US (and to the hapless Quartet) that brought his audience at the 
UN repeatedly to its feet. In turn, it transformed Abbas' own image 
from that of a passive politician trying to live up to Israel's standards 
for an acceptable "peace partner" into a courageous leader of a 
national liberation movement. 
If Palestinians are to retain their painfully acquired support, Abbas 
must develop and implement effective strategies for non-violent 
Palestinian resistance that will hold the world's attention and turn the 
"Palestinian Spring" he promised in his speech from slogan to reality. 
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AniCIC 5. 
The Christian Science Monitor 
An Interview with Mahmoud Abbas 
Raghida Dergham 
Raghida Dergham: Mr. President, how did you feel at the moment 
you stood before the General Assembly? At that historic moment as 
you stood there, how did you feel personally? 
Mahmoud Abbas: I felt that we are really witnessing an historic 
event, that we are before a just and right demand, namely that we 
want to obtain a state that is a full member of the United Nations, just 
like other people. I, as I gazed upon the people, felt that if we held a 
vote we would have had unanimous support. But unfortunately, there 
are those who want to prevent the Palestinian people from reaching 
that, and those who want to reject this, and all we can do is to be 
patient. 
Dergham: Are you afraid of the reactions? Is this an adventure that 
you fear may bring you undesirable consequences? 
Abbas: It is not an adventure. On the contrary, it is a well-calculated 
endeavor. For more than a year, we have discussed this issue and 
considered it down to the tedious details: Where do we go and how 
do we go there? We discussed it with Arab countries, which have 
been fully up to speed, especially the Arab follow-up committee, on 
every step we have taken. For this reason, we were not maneuvering 
or playing games, but were instead absolutely clear to everyone. This 
is our stance, and this is what we want to do. This is not only 
recorded in the minutes of meetings, but also in our statements. 
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