Message #10357

[Mark]

Obama conflicted over Palestine question

Exactly a year ago this week, President Barack Obama stood at the podium at the UN General Assembly and declared his support for a Palestinian state.

“Palestinians will never know the pride and dignity that comes with their own state,” Mr Obama told the general assembly, unless the two parties reached a peace agreement.

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So it will be some degree of awkwardness that Mr Obama returns to the UN this week and directs his representatives to vote against a plan that would lead to Palestinians achieving that exact destination, albeit by a different route.

Indeed, the US president will be acutely aware how hypocritical he must appear: voicing support for democratic transitions across the Middle East at the same time as scuppering Palestinian aspirations for recognition. Mr Obama hardly wants to be seen as being on the wrong side of the change sweeping through the Arab world.

Palestinian leaders this week plan to make a bid for full membership of the UN, a move that would officially make it a state, Palestine, on an equal footing with Israel. But the US has explicitly stated that it will use its veto power through the Security Council to block any such move.

Washington has long insisted that the only way to arrive at a Palestinian state is through negotiation and US presidents have long shunned the UN as the vehicle for getting there.

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