fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

The Palestinian Statehood Bid (III)

Spencer Ackerman defends the Palestinian statehood bid, saying this (via Andrew): If you were a Palestinian, you would push a U.N. gambit as well. Maybe not. According to Mehdi Hasan, the majority of Palestinians living in the diaspora has good reason to oppose this move: According to Goodwin-Gill, the PLO’s UN status would be transferred […]

Spencer Ackerman defends the Palestinian statehood bid, saying this (via Andrew):

If you were a Palestinian, you would push a U.N. gambit as well.

Maybe not. According to Mehdi Hasan, the majority of Palestinians living in the diaspora has good reason to oppose this move:

According to Goodwin-Gill, the PLO’s UN status would be transferred to the new state of Palestine after the vote on 20 September: a state confined to mere segments of the West Bank and perhaps Gaza; a state which most Palestinian refugees would have little or no connection to; a state which, lest we forget, does not actually exist. To have a PA-led fantasy state representing only West Bank and Gaza residents replace the PLO – representing all Palestinians – as Israel’s chief interlocutor would be a disaster.

That being the case, opposing the statehood bid need not have anything to do with endorsing the status quo or the political consensus here in the U.S. If the statehood bid is, in fact, a terrible mistake that will yield bitter fruit for all parties, but especially for those whom it is supposed to benefit, opposition to it seems the best of the available choices at present.

Andrew writes:

The petty short term problems and difficulties are not the issue here.

If the problems and difficulties were petty and short-term, he would have a point, but they are neither. “Going big” with the proposed statehood bid is guaranteed to fail, and it isn’t really “going big” at all. It is a toothless symbolic gesture that has been built up into something more meaningful than it actually is.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here