This would without doubt mean that the status and the role of the PLO in the UN would be radically altered. The PLO will, however, most likely be able to continue to fully exercise its mandate outside the UN system, while also ensuring the representation of its claims on behalf of all the Palestinian people through the States position in the UN.
The PLO is internationally recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and its mandate is based on the will of the people. Hence, the dissolution can only happen in accordance with its own structures and the will of the Palestinian people whom it represents. Further, the PLO would continue to act in its other capacities as the internationally recognized representative of all the Palestinian people in exercising their right to self-determination.
A main concern in the debate leading up to the Palestinian statehood application has been what this will mean for the rights of the some five million Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. A durable and peaceful solution to the conflict will not be obtainable without addressing these rights.
The statehood bid does not, however, deal directly with the question of the refugees. There have been questions of whether the rights of the refugees will continue to be effective after the establishment of a Palestinian state and what that would mean for UNRWA United Nations Relief and Works Agency that has provided emergency assistance and services to the Palestinian refugees since A Palestinian UN membership or observer status would not change the right of return or any other rights of the Palestinian refugees, as these are personal rights and not determined by the status of the Palestinian state.
UN General Assembly Resolution from maintains the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. Palestinian combatants who are apprehended by Israeli soldiers are at present treated as if they are civilians unlawfully engaged in combat. They are detained or imprisoned by Israel in a criminal proceeding in the framework of administrative detention or the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law.
With a Palestinian state being party to the Geneva Conventions, Israel could be obligated to modify its treatment of Palestinian combatants who are part of the regular forces or acting in the name of the state, and to recognize them as entitled to prisoner-of-war status according to the Third Geneva Convention. This provides the prisoners with various protections, above all legal immunity from criminal charges because of their participation in combat.
If the Palestinian state becomes party to the International Criminal Court, Article 8 of the Statute of the Court is of particular interest in relation to the Israeli occupation. This article states that transfer, direct or indirect, of the population of the occupying power into occupied territory constitutes a war crime. This could make the settlement issue a matter for an international criminal tribunal, which would create opportunities to prosecute Israelis responsible for establishing or expanding settlements.
Further, the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice concerning the Separation Barrier Wall states that, as an act that strengthens the settlements and makes them permanent, the construction of the wall in areas where it surrounds settlements constitutes an illegal act and violates the Geneva Convention. If Palestine is recognized as a state according to the borders, the area will include east Jerusalem. As distinct from other parts of the West Bank, east Jerusalem was unilaterally annexed by Israel, which since has applied its law, jurisdiction and administration to the area.
Although internal Israeli law defines east Jerusalem as part of the Israeli state, this has been rejected by the international community, which views it as part of the area held by Israel as an occupying power. From an international perspective, the laws that apply to the rest of the West Bank also apply to east Jerusalem. When determining whether a territory is occupied or not, according to international law, statehood is irrelevant. According to international law, a territory can be classified as occupied if a foreign military force is able to exercise effective control over the lives of the local population.
Occupation is therefore not a function of a permanent military presence, but of the ability to control the territory. Israel controls the territory of the West Bank and many aspects of life in the Gaza Strip. Status as a state would mean that Palestine has a lot more leverage and many more arenas to fight the occupation. But what exactly is Israel afraid of? At least, so goes the conventional wisdom. One Israeli diplomatic official warned, however, that there are no guarantees that the US will forever continue to put the kibosh on a Palestinian application for full UN membership.
But even assuming that for the time being the Americans will continue to wield their veto power, the mere fact of Palestinian statehood coming to a vote again and again will slowly have an impact, an Israeli academic specializing in international law said.
And their strategy is working. Scarier, in the eyes of some Israelis, is the prospect of Palestinians turning to the International Criminal Court and suing Israeli leaders for war crimes or crimes against humanity.
According to Alan Baker, a former legal adviser to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the Palestinian threat of a unilateral statehood drive is absolutely nothing to be afraid of. So what? Anyone who thinks otherwise is indulging in pipe dreams. Therefore, we should seriously consider what would happen if the Palestinians were indeed to declare a state and win relatively broad international recognition.
First of all, it is clear that Israel would announce that this unilateral declaration nullifies all prior agreements between it and the Palestinians, from Oslo on; that it is released from all the obligations it has undertaken, including the economic ones; and that it will henceforth relate to the areas under Palestinian control as foreign territory. It is also clear that all Israeli obligations arising from its military control of the territories would be abrogated under both Israeli and international law.
Not everyone would accept this argument, but it would not be possible to ignore it. A unilateral Palestinian declaration would not change the situation on the ground. By itself, such a declaration could not bring about the evacuation of the settlements, regardless of whether the Palestinians say they accept the settlers as citizens of their state or continue to claim that the settlements are illegal. The same of course goes for East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians would presumably say they see as their capital.
So, 63 years after, the president wants to enshrine the momentary configuration of where the fighting happened to stop as the formal and operative borders between the State of Israel and Palestine, notwithstanding that there are now two putative Palestines the West Bank and the Gaza Strip governed by two enemy regimes and that there is another one waiting to be birthed in Jordan.
Look, I like the Hashemites, sort of. You believe in Arab Spring? The fact is that Jews and Arabs will not live neighborly lives once it is clear that Palestinian half-rule does not mean the restoration of the Mandelbaum Gate and the Jews excluded from their deepest history and their most sacred sites.
Ah, but a Muslim shrine! Well, you know the difference, of course you do. For nearly 20 years, the world sat quite comfy with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, with help from the local Arabs, having occupied and then destroyed the entire ancient Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem which, according to the Palestine Partition and a later resolution, was supposed to be governed with the rest of the city, along with Bethlehem and other localities, as a corpus separatum.
Included in this territory was the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus and the Hadassah Hospital, then, as now, the most advanced patient care institution and medical school in the region. Of course, the internationalization of Jerusalem, which the Zionist authorities accepted, never came to pass. The internationalization scheme was dead. Even given the facts established by the Jordanians in old Jerusalem and the neglect by them of the West Bank called by history and modern Zionism, Judea and Samaria , the Israeli prime minister offered to restore the captured lands to Arab sovereignty.
But already then—that is, —Colonel Qaddafi was in power in Libya. He cast a thrall over the Arab League and established the principles of Arab diplomacy with Israel: no peace, no recognition, and no negotiations. Palestine may or may not secure some sort of recognition for itself at the forthcoming meeting of the General Assembly, when the emissaries of dictatorships come to New York for a big shopping spree.
But it will not much change things on the ground.
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