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UN vote on Palestinian state to fail, speaker says
YOUNGSTOWN
Palestinian efforts to join the United Nations as a full-member state later this month will fail, said a Middle East peace-process expert.
Palestinian officials said Thursday they were starting a campaign to have the U.N. vote on the issue when the organization’s General Assembly gathers Sept. 21. Until then, Palestinians plan to stage peaceful events to support the effort.
David Makovsky, director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, supports establishment of a Palestinian state.
But he said efforts to go through the U.N. will fail because the United States opposes the measure without negotiations and would veto the request.
Makovsky was in the area Thursday to speak at the invitation-only Youngstown Area Jewish Foundation’s campaign fund-raising event at Fellows Riverside Gardens. Before the event, Makovsky met with The Vindicator’s editorial board.
Makovsky, who speaks to both Israeli and Palestinian officials, said “there is a crucial need for negotiations” before a Palestinian state can be established. But negotiations are at a standstill, he said.
The demand to the U.N. could cause violence, Makovsky said, but it’s unlikely the Palestinians will opt to not seek the U.N. vote because they are “too far into the game to withdraw.”
“I worry about things unraveling on the ground,” he added. “No one has a crystal ball on this, but there is concern.”
Makovsky said European countries need to get more involved in the Palestinian statehood process for it to be successful.
Makovsky is the co-author of the 2009 book, “Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East,” as well as an award-winning journalist who covered the peace process from 1989 to 2000 and the former executive editor of the Jerusalem Post.