An Israeli View: Israel and UDI

In recent weeks, the two most senior moderate Palestinian leaders have put forth the option of Palestinian unilateral independence. In his Bethlehem speech in early August, which is now official Fateh policy, President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) proposed a unilateral declaration of independence as one of two Palestinian fall-back positions in the event final status negotiations for a two-state solution fail (his other fall-back option is a one-state solution). More recently, PM Salam Fayyad presented a detailed call for action "to establish a de facto state apparatus within the next two years".

These two instances of Palestinian unilateralism ostensibly differ one from the other, though in fact they are complementary. Abbas wants to negotiate, and cites unilateralism as an abstract alternative somewhere down the line. Fayyad also wants to negotiate a two-state solution, but proposes setting a two-year goal for completing the creation of Palestinian state institutions as a kind of incentive for Palestinians to be ready to assume statehood. He doesn't specify whether he expects that statehood to emerge as the outcome of a bilateral agreement or a unilateral Palestinian declaration, but suggests that by building the apparatus of a state, Palestinians can "expedite the end of occupation". Both Abbas and particularly Fayyad appear to assess that US President Barack Obama will set a two-year deadline for US-sponsored and guided Israeli-Palestinian talks to succeed, thus roughly paralleling Fayyad's agenda.

Note that we Israelis do not confront any immediate threat of a unilateral declaration of independence, as was repeatedly the case when Yasser Arafat threatened UDI during the 1990s. Moreover, the Fayyad plan for establishing a "de facto state apparatus" through institution-building appears to correspond nicely with the demands of the roadmap and the Blair mission, both sanctioned by Israel, and to build upon recent Palestinian security and fiscal achievements praised by Israel.

What remains is to consider how Israel should respond if, two years from now, a renewed peace process has failed and the Palestinian leadership seeks to convert what it by then claims is a de facto state into a de jure state by officially declaring independence and seeking United Nations and other international recognition.

As this is a hypothetical case, we can only lay out the dilemmas Israel would face. First of all, does the world recognize Palestinian UDI--it did not, after all, in 1988 when the Palestinian leadership-in-exile declared a state. If not, then of course Israel is relieved of a recognition dilemma and can in many ways afford to ignore the Palestinian declaration. But a UDI evolving from a failed negotiating process, particularly in the event the world blames Israel for the failure of negotiations, would probably have a good chance of gaining widespread recognition and acceptance.

Consistent with the traditional Palestinian position, now ostensibly endorsed even by Hamas, a newly-declared Palestinian state would almost certainly claim the 1967 green line boundary. In this case, the immediate challenge Jerusalem confronts would be how to deal with the pressing issues of borders, settlements and security, i.e., with the contradiction between the territory the new Palestinian state assigns itself and the reality on the ground wherein the two sides still confront Israeli occupation of areas B and C and Arab East Jerusalem, the designated Palestinian capital. As against the urgent need to find ways to continue to discuss these issues, UDI would seemingly free Israel of any further need to consider the refugee issue since it would have been delinked from bilateral territorial questions between two sovereign states. Indeed, UDI might reflect Palestinian recognition that the insurmountable refugee problem has to be bypassed. Nor would the de facto status of the Gaza Strip be clarified by UDI; indeed, it could be muddied if Hamas refuses to recognize the independence declaration.

These thoughts may be less hypothetical than they seem at first glance. The Netanyahu government and the PLO are apparently about to renew Israeli-Palestinian final status negotiations under the active sponsorship of the Obama administration. The Palestinian difficulty in accepting a reasonable Israeli offer was clearly demonstrated just under a year ago when Abbas turned down PM Ehud Olmert's final status proposals and declared "the gap was wide". PM Binyamin Netanyahu is hardly likely to match Olmert's generous proposal; if he even comes close, his coalition is almost certain to fall. Obama's determination to move the process forward within the broader framework of America's challenges in the greater Middle East would seem, under these likely circumstances, to encourage a Palestinian decision to create a sovereign fait accompli.

When the dust settles from the failed process and probably the collapse of one Israeli coalition and the emergence, conceivably after elections, of another, Israel would be well advised to offer conditional recognition to a self-declared Palestinian state pending settlement of their border and security issues. Solving those issues could be easier on a state-to-state basis, even if the outcome is a stable armistice agreement rather than an elusive end-of-conflict two-state solution.

- Published 7/9/2009 © bitterlemons.org

This column is re-printed with the permission of bitterlemons.org