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By

Robin Shepherd

Analysis

New year, old tricks: Palestinians go to UN

January 6, 2011 13:36
1 min read

The signs were there for all to see. 2011 was always going to be the year that the Palestinians turned to the United Nations to help obscure the reality of their own rejectionism as the root cause of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and to use inbuilt majorities in that less than august institution to make life as difficult as possible for the state of Israel.

The opening move, it seems, will be made imminently. The Palestinians are pushing for a United Nations resolution declaring that settlements are against international law and thus form the main stumbling block to meaningful negotiations.

As Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat put it in an article in the Los Angeles Times, the strategy is to base the wording of the resolution on comments against settlement building that have already been voiced publicly by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, thus making it extremely difficult for the Americans to block it. "It's a very moderate resolution by design because we don't want the US to veto it," Erekat said bluntly.

There is nothing new in United Nations resolutions against the settlements. In March 1979, UN Security Council Resolution 446 averred that the settlements "have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East".