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Israel, Palestinians prepare for face-off at United Nations
JULIA GOLDMAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
UNITED NATIONS - The Palestinians are bringing their campaign for statehood here.
A draft Palestinian resolution, which will be presented to the U.N. General Assembly during its current session, would recognize the Palestinians' "right to establish an independent state." The Palestinian representative at the U.N., Nasser al-Kidwa, said he is confident the resolution will succeed.
"The challenge is not to pass the resolution. It will pass anyway," al-Kidwa said in an interview. "The challenge is to maintain support to pave the way for what is to follow."
But Israel's U.N. ambassador, Dore Gold, maintains that such a resolution "will introduce anarchy into international agreements." Warning that any declaration of statehood in the absence of a final-status accord would violate already signed agreements, Gold said, "The Oslo agreements do not expire on May 4, 1999."
The question of Palestinian statehood, according to the Oslo accords, is one of the final-status issues that was expected to be resolved in direct Israeli-Palestinian talks no later than that date, which is the end of the interim period spelled out in the Oslo accords. But with the peace process deadlocked for more than 18 months, it appears that final-status talks will not be concluded in the next eight months.
Earlier this month in South Africa, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat appealed to the 113 non-aligned U.N. member-nations for support during "this fateful phase of the militant march of our people" in making a "historic decision." When Arafat addresses the U.N. General Assembly next week, Israel expects him to repeat that speech, in which he declared that the decision to be made "is the establishment of the state of Palestine in the territories occupied since 1967."
Arafat's appearance will come just days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the world body, which was scheduled for Thursday.
During last year's U.N. session, the Palestinians stepped up their efforts to bolster their status in the world body. Their efforts culminated in July, when the Palestinians were granted "additional rights and privileges of participation" in the General Assembly by an overwhelming vote. The new status grants the Palestinians the right to participate in the General Assembly's general debate and the right to co-sponsor draft resolutions and decisions on Palestinian and Middle East issues. But the Palestinians are excluded from the right to vote or to put forward candidates for U.N. committees.
With debates set to begin next week among the U.N.'s 185 member nations, Israel is preparing for "a very clear international agenda that is emerging," Gold said.
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