Following the hoopla surrounding the speeches at the U.N. General Assembly, we need to ask, what happens next? Will we experience the "diplomatic tsunami" the defense minister has warned us about? On the surface, speeches in the General Assembly plenary have little value beyond public relations. Tomorrow they will be filed away and buried in the U.N. archives. But it was important for Mahmoud Abbas to use this international platform to speak to the Palestinian people on the one hand, and on the other hand to address the global media as well as the crowd of cheerleaders applauding him inside the General Assembly Hall in New York.
It was important to him to redirect international attention to the Palestinian issue after the Arab Spring pushed it to the margins of the news cycle.
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It was important to him to give voice, in all his bitterness, to the Palestinian narrative of the eternal victim. It was important to him to sling the mud of the standard U.N. lexicon at Israel, including accusations of ethnic cleansing, colonialism and apartheid, in the best tradition of the Durban conference, where his predecessor Yasser Arafat did the same precisely ten years ago.
It was important to him to stage a bizarre ceremony of submitting his statehood petition -- normally an ordinary process devoid of excitement or ceremony. But for Mahmoud Abbas, who has not chalked up many successes in his leadership of the Palestinian people, this constitutes part of his life's aspiration before he disappears from the international stage. His goal is to enter Palestinian history as no less a hero than the Rais, Yasser Arafat himself.
Abbas' speech did not contain a message of reconciliation toward the people of Israel. On the contrary. It contained threats, defiance, accusations and slander. He did not contribute to his own credibility as a true seeker of peace.
Netanyahu's speech, on the other hand, lacked the equivalent drama, pathos and fervor. Instead, he laid out, in a clear and orderly fashion, Israel's reasons for its security demands and its demand for recognition as a Jewish state. It did not contain threats or provocations. Rather, his speech was to the point.
Now that the speeches have been made, we confront two legal and diplomatic situations:
First, there is the fervor of the Europeans and other members of the International Quartet (Russia, the U.S., the U.N. and EU) to strike while the iron is hot, and bring the Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations as quickly as possible, in the hope of achieving a peace treaty within a year. This presents both sides with the urgent need to clarify their positions and negotiating strategies, including the possibilities of compromise. It's doubtful both sides can forge negotiating positions in the face of their internal political fragility: Netanyahu's fragile coalition on the one hand and the Palestinian division between Fatah and Hamas on the other. Even if the two sides do enter negotiations, can they actually commit to its outcome?
The second issue is the Palestinian U.N. petition itself. From a legal point of view, it does not meet the membership criteria stipulated in international law. Palestinians do not control the territory of their requested state, nor do they honor international norms and rules. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that the Security Council will respond to their request in the negative, or delay an answer until such a time when the sides have embarked on negotiations.
Still, nothing stands in the way of the Palestinians separately submitting a petition to the U.N. General Assembly asking to upgrade their status to non-member state. In the General Assembly, where there is no U.S. veto, the automatic majority of all those states that applauded Mahmoud Abbas will enable the upgrade, even though in effect it does not constitute a change from the status quo. The effective meaning of a status upgrade would be that the Palestinians get to sit next to the Vatican delegation as a non-member state.
Without a doubt the Palestinians will attempt to upgrade their status in other international bodies connected to the U.N. like UNESCO, the World Health Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization and various international tribunals. They will claim that recognition by the General Assembly awards them the status of a bona fide state. Such a situation will clearly be a big headache for Israel.
The writer is former legal counsel of Israel's Foreign Ministry and former ambassador to Canada