La Palestina alle Nazioni Unite

Daniel Levy tenta di ricostruire i possibili scenari che si svilupperanno quando Mahmoud Abbas, presidente dell'ANP, presenterà la richiesta per un seggio palestinese all'Assemblea Generale dell'ONU.

While the relentless pace of developments in the Middle East shows little sign of flagging, the region will briefly cast its gaze to New York next week -- with the backdrop for the next installment on Israel-Palestine being provided by Manhattan's East side digs of the United Nations. Any thoughts of the Arab awakening "proving" that Palestine was in fact a marginal concern in the region were unequivocally banished in recent weeks. To imagine that a popular Arab push for democracy, freedom, and dignity would ignore Israel's denial of those same aspirations for Palestinians was a flight of fancy. The opposite is unsurprisingly proving true -- Arab democracy will be less tolerant of Palestinian disenfranchisement than was Arab autocracy.

What is actually likely to happen to the Palestinian effort at the United Nations and what might it mean for all concerned?

Even at this late stage it is unclear exactly which U.N. option, if any, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (for it is the PLO that is still the diplomatic-political address for the Palestinians) will pursue. That should not be such a surprise -- opacity is part of any negotiation and last minute decisions are the bread and butter of international diplomacy, in this case compounded by the uncertainty and absence of a clear strategy on the part of the Palestinian leadership. Their U.N. options basically fall into three baskets: do nothing, go for membership at the Security Council, or go for an upgrade at the General Assembly.