The Kojo Nnamdi Show

If Palestine statehood bid is rejected, will it not serve the interest of Palestinian more than the supposed Israel interest?

Reality check on international support: BBC News for Middle East dated 16th September, 2011 released the poll of 20,446 citizens conducted by GlobeScan in 19 countries to test public opinion on Palestine statehood; it announced 49 % positive response as against 21 % negative response with the remaining as not responding. The exercise does not constitute public opinion in the first place and it is rather absurd to determine status of nationality through public opinion poll when the issue is not a public issue; it is an international issue for international forum of UN member governments, who will vote based on their respective bilateral position with Israel and allies. Palestine has no bilateral relations with any country; thus support from Muslim countries would be undoubtedly on religious solidarity while China and Russia's view may be colored by anti USA stand. No government would really bother to examine the viability of this proposition on merits other than their own self interest.

Question on legality of UN intervention: The issue of two state nation theories for Israel and Palestine stood unresolved and became complicated in the decade. Today, the pressure is built by peace activists and humanitarians to push for UN resolution. A short and brief critical appraisal could help highlight the demerits of the present conflict resolution approach. Legally, UN intervenes legitimately if both the conflicting parties failed to provide the resolution. Phase II of the 2003 Quartet Road map for Peace offered the option of creating "an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders" as a stepping stone to a negotiated permanent final-status agreement. Israel agreed and had offered Palestine statehood, the offer was rejected by the PLO leader. After rejection, what legal justification can be applied to seek intervention of UN body now? Based on this evidence, UN legal intervention will lack ground to justify the intervention.

Nation without unitary territorial boundary: For a territory to be recognized as a sovereign nation, it must have primarily, a well defined territorial boundary with international borders. West Bank flanked by Jordon and Gaza so far located at the other end of the sea coast within Israel do not share a unitary territorial boundary to qualify statehood status especially for administrative reason for a nation to execute its governance. Most importantly, this arrangement projects a very high risk for future conflict on boundary issue. The geographic location of being locked between two nations is bound to produce conflict with Israel (its target enemy and not Jordon) with concomitants effects such as illegal immigration, trespassing and encroachments as experienced with Bangladesh and Pakistan by India.

Nation with controversial holdings: Territorially, Palestine will not gain as much as it expects from UN intervention. The Oxford University law professor Guy Goodwin-Gill recently argued in a legal brief to Palestinian leadership, '' the move to statehood would also terminate the legal status of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The state of Palestine's authority would effectively be limited geographically to parts of West Bank and perhaps Gaza. Palestinian refugees outside of the newly recognized state would be left without any representation within international institutions. And Gaza would presumably be considered a Hamas-occupied Palestinian territory, given the failure to date to implement its April 2011 unity agreement with Fatah. At best, the state of Palestine would thus rule around forty percent of the West Bank. The other territories that the Palestinians claim -- the remaining sixty percent of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza -- would all be controlled by Israel or Hamas''.

Nation without economic base: Palestine has for years relied upon using Israeli channels, where produce of Palestine, exported to Israel, is re-exported to other countries. Agriculture as a primary economy of Palestine is dependent on Israel technology and irrigation system. Palestine has no currency and coinage to market their goods internationally, and their communication line is through Israel territory, which they dream of grabbing it by any means. The catastrophe of the conflict on innocent citizens, advocated to be protected by humanitarians will become a wicked mockery. Without primary economic base, the dream of statehood with a dream to further dream on grabbing through UN network is a very unpleasant dream.

Nation depending on aid: Building capacity to govern is a costly subject loved by international organizations, who indulged in the pleasure of helping by creating more mess. Palestine is not a sovereign body with administrative structure in place, yet even before shaping itself to set up a structure; it has become a victim of corruption and embezzlement at the highest levels. This has had serious effects on industry and commerce and living standards of ordinary Palestinians. The indication of this growing trend ensures rise in poverty level, which in turn will surely induce more conflict. To the interest of global humanitarians, aid may be the initial vitalizer but is proven to be highly potent to tempt such weak capacity to more corruption in the system as has happened in Afghanistan. The aid culture will soon become fashionable, as already, approximately 30% of the GDP is aid and will become more dependent on aid in future years. Just as the aid consumption increases with no accountability, the donors from humanitarian countries in economic doldrums will stop the aid under pressure from their own public accountability. To fill the gap, the rich Arab brothers maybe expected to come forward to dole out currencies but there is no certainty of the condition it may imposed on Palestine. Besides, China along with Russia will penetrate for global influence. In this way, Palestine will continue to remain a hot affair and a resort for international sportsmanship while the poor innocent will bear the brunt of the big players permitted by its own leaders. It is not always useful to have the brawn, it is more beneficial to have the brain to decipher and feel the possibilities.

Nation to be ruined under dictatorship: Middle-east is a special area on earth with special problem and absurdities. The absurdities of its culture have led intellectual to research the link between religion and development and why this absurdity has sapped up the energy and resources of the globe. The convergent point of both theorists and practitioners is on development and governance which largely depends on leadership. The role of development leadership is undeniably critical to attaining peace and vice versa. Palestine needs peace but the key question is: will peace and development be possible under the circumstances detailed above with leadership like Hamas and the likes? The rule of a megalomaniac will scourge his subjects to satisfy his own needs to dictate and conquer his neighbor. The future road clearly envisaged a more severe conflict with no hope of peace insight.

More tears on Earth: : The ground workers such as the peace activists and the so called humanitarians react to the surface only, they are not equipped to see the underlying undercurrents, the colossal catastrophe for the future ( yet to arrive). They unfortunately help the dreamers in their dream to conquer by any means, first by terrorizing others that provokes atrocities from the other party; the chain reaction propelled them to seek global sympathy. The leader used a human shield to further his dream of conquest through UN network. The truth is that innocent people suffer because of bad leadership; the poor Palestinian populace bears the brunt of megalomaniac leaders, who are now set to swing them into more miserable condition after statehood attainment with all liberty and freedom to be buried. For sure, humanitarians job opportunity will increase, but the aid flow has no perennial source to fund forever particularly under the economic crises in humanitarian aid donor countries. Who will bail Palestine out in that crisis? The rich Arab brothers in arms are quick to instigate, they have no record of being charitable while their blood boils with anger and violence mostly, and thus expectation of their loving help may only remain an expectation. The next phase of conflict is bound to set the globe into flame. The conflict resolution prepared by the Samaritans, who may be genuinely concerned to wipe the tears of innocent victims in the fray, see only the surface without reading the lines behind and has effectively prepared an excellent ground work for more intense future conflict to shed more tears.

Wakeup call to reality: The globe is going through a strange phenomenon. This is the time to integrate efforts for sustainability. Disintegrated piece of land with false ego of statehood having no economic base and in a landlocked position poses very high challenges for nation building exercises, particularly in a condition infested already with the global disease of corruption. Under these circumstances, should it not be wise for Palestinians to verify the feasibility of statehood rationally without being too emotional?

Time to listen and be wise: The most feasible approach to conflict resolution for Israel - Palestine is to seek sustainability of their existence through building development community using an integrated effort in brotherhood, peace and forgiveness and not in promoting dis- aggregation, disunity and conflict to become prey for the new rising imperialist. This is the moment to remind ourselves of the wise saying, ' knowledge speaks, wisdom listens'.

Stand together to stop more tears: The objective of this analysis is to rationalize the best interest of both Israel and Palestine. Giving statehood to Palestine should be indeed good for Israel as Palestine has become a liability and will remain a liability through interference from Arab brothers. Bad assets are usually divested in business, but this is a case of human life, where disinvestment will not yield profitable output but instead will wrought costly future catastrophe. Wisdom lies in seeing the underneath and not just looking at the tears in the eyes of the victims. The vote for Palestinian statehood is alarmingly indicating more future tears to flow; it is wise not to ensure more tears flowing from the innocent and to work together to stop the tears flowing forever.