Can Netanyahu still engage with Palestinians' UN bid? (Carlo Strenger)

A few days ago Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor informed the Foreign Ministry that Israel has no chance to stop UN recognition of Palestine. This didn’t really surprise anybody. Defense Minister Ehud Barak already months ago warned of the “diplomatic tsunami” Israel would face in September.

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Israel’s potential gains from engaging with the Palestinian UN bid would be tangible. UN recognition of a Palestinian state alongside that of Israel could finally put the fears of many Israelis that the country’s existence is not internationally accepted to rest.

This would have required Israel to engage with the Palestinian UN bid and to support it under condition that the resolution explicitly states that the Palestinian state will exist alongside Israel, thus reaffirming Israel’s legitimacy.

Such an Israeli request to reformulate UN recognition would probably have garnered wide support in the international community, and it would have forced Palestinians to make a choice: either a fully recognized Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with agreed land-swaps, or no UN recognition. My hunch is that they would have gone for full membership at the UN, because this would have given them powerful legal means to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

Even the Palestinian demand that their state would be based on the 1967 borders would have had benefits for Israel. For the first time in its history, the country would have had internationally legitimized borders on all sides – borders that many senior defense figures find perfectly defensible.

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/strenger-than-fiction/can-netanyahu-still-engage-with-palestinians-un-bid-1.381579