Tony Blair Strikes Again.

In his role as the Chair of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas has today confirmed that the PLO will use this year's United Nations General Assembly to push for a vote on recognising Palestine as a sovereign state. There are actually two ways to go about this. Firstly they can call a General Assembly vote on the motion and if it is passed by a two thirds majority it will be passed up to the Security Council where it can be ratified by eight members voting yes or vetoed by one of the five permanent members. Alternatively they can just refer the motion directly to the Security Council.

Although both of these routes are equally valid the General Assembly route will require more nations to actively vote in support of a Palestinian state and will therefore be seen to carry more credibility. Initially this was the route the PLO were intending to take but today (16/9/11) Abbas confirmed that they will instead be going straight to the Security Council. This is being done over worries that the motion may not pass the General Assembly because of genuine concerns amongst it's allies that Palestine is not yet ready for all that statehood entails and a wider desire to avoid having the issue brought before the Security Council at this time. This last point is because as soon as the matter comes before the Security Council it will stop being about Palestine and become a battle of wills between the USA on one side and China and Russia on the other which will encompass all the complex geo-political pressure points between these three great adversaries. The USA have already indicated that they will veto the motion but I think they're bluffing and will instead abstain from the vote. This puts huge pressure on Russia and China to either use their veto and risk the allegiances they built up on their support for Palestine or vote for the motion and risk having the Palestinians being left with a resolution they may well live to regret.

If Palestine does become a state then there are a number of things that will have to change. Firstly the PLO will have to be replaced with a national government. Although there are a number of ways this can happen the PLO have indicated that they simply intend to change their name. This presents a problem because due to a number or reasons, not all their own fault, the PLO is not really capable of becoming a credible national government. For example they don't really control the Gaza part of Palestine. It is also a problem because the PLO is an unelected body that doesn't represent the views of large sections of Palestinian society. So if the PLO were to become the national government then Hamas and it's supporters could well find themselves frozen out of the new Palestine state. This will suit Israel and the Zionists in the USA and Britain perfectly but will be a problem for Hamas supporters and a big problem for all Palestinians if the tensions it will create leads to a civil war.

Secondly if Palestine becomes a state then all the different armed groups associated with the PLO will either have to become part of a Palestinian national army or be controlled by the national army. Israel has time and time again shown itself to be opposed to the Palestinians setting up an armed security force let alone a fully fledged army so will make this task as difficult as possible. This creates a very real risk that one of these armed groups or even a false flag group will attack Israel again. If Palestine is a sovereign state it will be much easier for Israel to argue that the attack is a Palestinian act of war against Israel with all the consequences that entails.

Thirdly if Palestine becomes a state then it's borders and territory will become fixed. This leaves little room for future negotiations and possible land swaps that could be required to take into account future discoveries of natural resources like gas and water. Also giving Palestine a fixed territory offers little protection against future Israeli expansion because as Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon will testify Israel has no qualms about invading sovereign states and settling Jews on the stolen land.

Fourthly if Palestine becomes a state it will have to officially make Palestinians citizens of that state. Again there are a number of ways this could happen but it is most likely that Palestinians living abroad as refugees will not only have to give up their right to return but also their claim to Palestinian citizenship and become stateless with no-one looking out for their interests.

So if I was part of the PLO I wouldn't be in such a rush to get statehood and should perhaps be prepared to settle for enhanced observer status for the time being

I should also say that now I've had time to think about it the Welsh mining disaster also looks like a British attempt to muscle in on the possibly impending USA, China, Russia argument. Russia recently had it's own mining disaster which I believe killed 12. So Britain having it's own mining disaster was an attempt to start a conversation with Russia over where they stand. The safety record of China's mining industry is less then ideal and if the recent high speed train crash is anything to go by public safety is an issue that mobilises China's increasingly assertive population to demand more from their government. So Britain bringing up the issue of mining safety looks like an attempt to put extra pressure on China ahead of the meeting. Also mining involves digging lots of tunnels. I'm sure the Palestinians, especially the one's in Gaza, know a thing or two about that.