Noah Millman writes that the Palestinian statehood bid will benefit Netanyahu politically:

Formally, the Netanyahu government is lobbying fiercely against such a declaration. But notwithstanding this, such a declaration is probably in the interests of the Netanyahu government, and Bibi undoubtedly knows this. Anything that heats up the conflict probably bolsters the right in Israel.

That would seem to guarantee that the “gamble” isn’t going to pay off, and any conceivable resolution of the conflict will be more remote than ever. If a maneuver is going to fail while empowering your staunchest opponents, it’s usually not an advisable thing to do. Matt Steinglass notes, “On the ground, meanwhile, the theoretical recognition of Palestinian “observer state” status at the UN will change nothing.” This is true for the most part, except that aid cut-offs and other reactions to the bid that will likely follow are going to change things for Palestinians for the worse. As Steinglass sees it, Israel could readily endorse statehood for Palestine because it doesn’t really mean very much, so that “Israeli acceptance involves no significant concrete concessions that I can see.” It’s not as if Palestine’s recognition would provide it any more protection than it has right now. Lacking defined borders, its complaints about violations of its quasi-sovereignty will be ignored, and as long as Gaza remains effectively out of its control the PA’s claims about sovereignty in Gaza will be meaningless.

Something that keeps coming up is the idea that the Palestinian Authority will be able to appeal to the International Criminal Court following recognition of statehood, but this is probably not going to lead to any accountability for Israeli excesses in the past. Colum Lynch explained earlier this month:

The Palestinians asked the prosecutor to exercise jurisdiction over major war crimes dating back to 2002, opening the door to possible investigations of Operation Cast Lead. But legal scholars remained divided over whether the prosecutor can open cases dating back that far.

As Mark Goldberg observed (via Andrew), Palestinian leaders appear interested in cooperating with the ICC, but Israel is not. There would not be any way to prosecute any officials from Israel unless Israel hands them over, and we all understand that this will never happen, so there isn’t likely to be any accountability in the future.

Millman is probably right that Palestinians in the diaspora won’t be materially harmed by recognition, but for many of them that it isn’t the point. This might remove an obstacle to a negotiated settlement, but the statehood bid is itself an acknowledgment that such a settlement is not forthcoming. In this case, it is the abandonment of an important symbolic position in exchange for nothing. Maybe somewhere down the road it “opens the path to actual, material progress,” but that must seem to be almost as much of an illusion as the “right of return” is.