With the United Nations set to debate Palestinian statehood on 20 September, Jadaliyya Co-Editor Mouin Rabbani, a Middle East-based expert on Palestine and Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, discusses the background to and implications of this development. He will be in the U.S. 15 September through 10 October for media appearances and public events.
Concerning the UN bid, Rabbani stated:
Two decades of negotiations have achieved nothing except the further consolidation of Israeli control over the occupied territories, in large part because of consistent American support for Israeli impunity.It is therefore high time for an alternative and more effective approach to resolve this conflict and achieve a credible two-state settlement. Given the systematic failure of bilateral Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy under unilateral American sponsorship, returning the Question of Palestine - in all of its dimensions - to the multilateral forum of the United Nations is an essential first step.Serious questions can and should be raised about the manner in which this is being approached by the Palestinian leadership. But the era in which the U.S. and other Western powers profess support for the principle of Palestinian statehood while thoroughly undermining it in practice must come to an end. Supporting a Palestinian state provided none is established simply won`t do anymore.