Israel & Palestine; The Speeches.

The chair of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has confirmed that the council will discuss Palestine's application for statehood on Monday (26/9/11). However it is unlikely that there will be a vote on the issue with the council more likely to request that reports are prepared to be presented ahead of a possible vote at some point in the future. That said Britain, France, the United States and possibly French Lebanon will all be pushing hard for a vote and no-one expected the UNSC to pass resolution 1973 on Libya as quickly as it did so I can't totally rule out the possibility of a vote.

With Palestinian statehood only being considered by the UNSC the opinions of the wider United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) are less critical. However the speeches given by the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the UNGA on Friday (23/9/11) gave both sides the opportunity to lay out their arguments for and against the proposal. Unfortunately neither speech really added anything new to the debate.

Abbas went first and gave a speech which I have to say - in the English translation at least - seemed confused and difficult to follow. He began by giving a history of peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine and blamed Israel for all the previous failures. He went on to highlight the problems of trying to negotiate with Israel while Israel continues to build settlements and separation walls that divide up and undermine the viability of Palestinian communities. Other commentators have likened this problem to two people trying to negotiate how best to share a pizza while one of the people just carries on eating. Abbas then spoke of the torment that Palestinians suffer on a daily basis at the hands of Jewish settlers. Abbas stated that the PLO hold the Israeli state responsible for the actions of these religious extremists. This seems to be an indication that if Palestine were to be given statehood it would use a lot of it's energies pursuing Israel for past crimes through the International Criminal Court (ICC). This is a worry for many people because it is a huge waste of energy that will make future negotiations more difficult and pursuing crimes of some 30 years ago at the expense of moving forward reeks of a thirst for vengeance rather then justice. By contrast Abbas also spoke about all those Palestinians who were forced to flee their homes during the creation of Israel and how in those cases the PLO would be prepared to settle for relative justice rather then full justice. This was a clear indication that the PLO intends to abandon the right to return of Palestinian refugees in return for statehood. Abbas then went on to list the pre-conditions for future negotiations with Israel including a freeze on settlement building in order to avoid the pizza problem. He then finished up by demonstrating that the PLO is ready to run a nation state by hailing their somewhat questionable efforts at reconciliation with Hamas, the improvements in infrastructure and economic development and their commitment to democracy.

Although his delivery was much more polished and nuanced Netanyahu's speech was probably the more offensive of the two. He again restated Israel's long standing position that it is a special nation ordained by divine religious rite which is constantly under threat of destruction at the hands of a sinister Islamic conspiracy. Unless you subscribe to a very literal interpretation of the Christian Bible this sounds more then a little bit crazy and if you're a Muslim it sounds downright offensive. Netanyahu singled out Iran as being at the heart of this conspiracy, mocked the Iranian President's speech to the UNGA and warned of the dangers of a nuclear armed Iran.

On a more practical level Netanyahu spoke of the difficulties Israel has faced removing settlers for Gaza in the cause of peace and how that sacrifice was only met with more violence from the Palestinians - in effect blaming the Palestinians for the failure of previous negotiations. Based on the facts it is hard to find much sympathy for Israel on this point because they wouldn't have had to remove illegal settlements if they hadn't built illegal settlements in the first place. Also Israel's hands are less then clean when it comes to the greatly reduced levels of violence coming from Gaza. Netanyahu went on to speak about the security threat of Israel withdrawing fully from the occupied West Bank citing the west bank mountains that overlook major Israeli cities as an example. Although there are legitimate security concerns around areas like the Jordan valley it is again hard to find sympathy for Israel on the cited example. While the location of mountains is determined by nature humans get to choose where they build their cities. So Netanyahu seems to be arguing that Israel can't possibly have peace with Palestine because the Israeli government are terrible at urban planning.

Overall Netanyahu seemed to be using his speech as an opportunity to offend as many people as possible. He attacked the UNGA as being anti-Israeli and attacked the UNSC specifically for being chaired by what he described as a Lebanon run by the Hezbollah terrorist group. He called Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Libya close friends of Israel. Considering the populations of these nations are less then keen on Israel and the Libyan rebels especially have a strong current of anti-semitism running through them being called a close friend of Israel puts huge pressure on the governments of those nations to prove that they're not. Netanyahu also appeared to mock the hand gestures used by US President Obama which considering the overwhelming support Obama has shown Israel this week seemed ungrateful and downright rude.

So Netanyahu seemed to be supporting the Palestinian statehood plan by telling everyone he's against it but encouraging everyone to disagree with him by insulting them.