After U.N. Defeat, Palestinian Unilateralism Seen as ‘Losing its Luster’

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“[The resolution’s failure] is no great surprise, since the United States has a veto [at the Security Council],” Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS.org. “However, it was somewhat surprising that the Palestinians failed to garner the nine ‘yes’ votes to force a U.S. veto. This seems to suggest that the Palestinians failed to do enough diplomatic legwork before pushing for a last-minute vote at the Security Council.”

Schanzer said his sense “is that Palestinian unilateralism is losing its luster at the United Nations, but also on the Palestinian street.”

On Dec. 29, U.S. State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke had said America believes the Palestinian resolution “fails to account for Israel’s legitimate security needs, and the satisfaction of those needs, of course, integral to a sustainable settlement.” Before the vote, British Ambassador to the U.N. Mark Lyall Grant also said that he was concerned about the resolution’s language.

“There’s some difficulties with the text, particularly language on time scales, new language on refugees. So I think we would have some difficulties [voting for the resolution],” Grant said. The U.K. was ultimately one of five Security Council members to abstain for the vote. The U.S. and Australia voted against the measure, which garnered eight affirmative votes, falling one short of passing.

Argentina, Chad, Chile, China, France, Jordan, Luxembourg, and Russia voted in favor of the Palestinian resolution. The tight vote highlighted some shifting attitudes about Israel, especially in Europe and Africa. Notably, the French, whose parliament recently adopted a resolution urging the government to recognize Palestinian statehood, voted in favor. Israel subsequently summoned the French ambassador to the Jewish state and said it was “disappointed and perplexed” by France’s voting decision.

But at the same time, Israel has found new allies on the international stage, including Australia and sub-Saharan African nations.

“The Australian government appears to be leaning quite pro-Israeli. The U.K. appeared to be more concerned with the lack of transparency of the process, and voiced those concerns at [the Dec. 30] meeting. It was interesting to hear Rwanda voice similar concerns,” Schanzer told JNS.org.
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“When the [Palestinian campaign for unilateral statehood recognition] began, it was novel and there was a sense that it could truly change the dynamics,” Schanzer told JNS.org. “But it increasingly looks like Abbas falls back on this strategy when all else fails, but without achieving real results. It also looks like he is deliberately choosing to turn away from diplomacy in favor of this fruitless approach. The end result is the international community and the Palestinian street are growing weary of these diplomatic theatrics.”
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