Argentina Recognises Palestine

A great day for Palestine.

The reaction of of the Israeli press and officialdom is interesting - Haaretz covers the announcement here and the Jerusalem Post here.

The headline of the Haaretz article is revealing in itself : "Israel warns Argentina: Recognizing Palestinian state shatters peace process". Sounds a bit like : "Child warns Father - premature removal of dummy risks tantrum!"

The decision was highly "damaging," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor
said, "because they are in fact shattering the foundation of the peace
process."

This is actually true. The foundation of the current peace process is institutionalised Israeli footdragging to provide a cover for the deepening and systemisation of the occupation. Israel believes that Oslo conferred upon them a limitless exemption from international law and a legal basis for the occupation, and thus the rest of the world no longer has a right to express an opinion on the subject.

In my opinion the shattering of this sort of "process" is exactly what the middle east needs.
The Israeli foreign ministry took the cake with this statement :

“All attempts to bypass negotiations and to unilaterally determine issues
in dispute will only harm the trust of the sides and their commitment to agreed upon frameworks for negotiations,”

Except for unilaterally building the wall, doubling the size of settlements, ethnically cleansing Sheikh Jarrah, etc - apparantly those actions don't threaten anything.

But apart from giving us the opportunity to enjoy another dose of Israeli Kafka-esque irony, there are some broader implications :

• Was the US have forewarned of the move? Is this actually a US warning shot across Bibi's bows?;
• Could Obama be preparing to ditch the whole illusion of a process, and deal directly with the final status issues via the UN security council?; and most importantly
• Could Abu Mazen be finally waking up to the power of saying no?

Let's look at the worst case scenario for Abbas - there is no US pressure on Israel and no moves forward in the peace process. Abbas then continues his trips around the world gathering more and more recognition of the 67 borders. Towards the end of 2011 he petitions the Security Council with something approaching an international consensus.

The US would veto it of course, but only after extracting huge concessions from Israel - "you are one abstention away from international pariah status".