The fact that Mahmoud Abbas failed to convince the UN to recognize a Palestinian state does not mean that Israel responded successfully to Abbas’s bid, argues Emmanuel Navon. Last week’s Security Council vote simply showed Israel once again on the defensive. Instead, Navon writes, it should be actively pursuing its own strategy, and refusing to accept the narrative created by its enemies:
Right now, the Palestinians are trying to get what they want from Israel, free of charge—a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories without in any way weakening the demand for the “right of return.” Israel needs to work in the opposite direction: go to the UN to force the Palestinians to give up the right of return and dismantle UNRWA. Obviously, Israel will not be able to get a majority in either the UN General Assembly or the Security Council for such a proposal. But such a move would be very important psychologically and symbolically: instead of only Israel sitting in the international dock for its “refusal” to withdraw from the territories, the Palestinians will be exposed to the world as refusing to remove the major stumbling block to the two-national-state solution.
Read more on MIda: http://mida.org.il/2015/01/01/israel-counterattack-unsc/