Palestinians' UN gambit could spur changes - Yahoo! News
Many Israelis are dismissing the Palestinians' efforts to win international recognition of their independence at the United Nations this month as merely symbolic.
But the Palestinians hope the high-profile maneuvering, on a grand global stage, might yield results that have eluded them through decades of peace talks, popular uprisings and violence campaigns.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is set to address the U.N. next week, planning to ask the world to recognize a Palestinian state.
The path to full membership seems blocked because it goes through the Security Council, the powerful 15-member body where the United States — still urging the Palestinians to back down — promises a veto. But the General Assembly, meeting next week in New York, seems likely to recognize Palestine as a nonmember observer state. This status, identical to that of the Vatican, requires only a simple majority of its 193 members.
Formally, General Assembly recognition would be mainly declarative. But in the Middle East, especially at this time, events could quickly spiral out of hand. The Palestinian gambit could have far-reaching consequences.
While it's impossible to predict how things will unfold, here's a look at some of the possible scenarios:
RESUMPTION OF VIOLENCE
Israelis fear a return to the violence that typified the first half of the previous decade, when Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli retaliations were the order of the day. Israeli media have warned of mass marches into Jerusalem, the besieging of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the storming of borders and attacking of army checkpoints.
The Palestinians do plan demonstrations to coincide with the diplomatic activity, but they insist all will be peaceful and dismiss Israel's fears, accusing it of heating up the atmosphere to discredit their efforts.
A senior Palestinian security official said the Palestinian president had given clear orders to prevent any friction with the Israelis at checkpoints and settlements.
The PLO has formed a special committee to oversee the "field activities" but it does not include Hamas, the militant group that since 2007 has run the Gaza Strip, a coastal strip that has been a launching pad for persistent rocket fire at Israel.
Israeli authorities also fear that unofficial activity, even a provocative act by a lone individual, could spark wider violence. Israeli security forces have been training and stockpiling riot-control equipment in anticipation of trouble.
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