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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/9/2014, SPi

xxxvi The Crooked Course

However, compromises among the Quartet members led to ambiguities which gave the parties the opportunity to make radically different interpretations of their obligations under the plan. The Israeli side claimed that the Road Map called for security first—a complete end of Palestinian violence—before any negotiations could start. This strategy was called sequentialism. The Palestinian side, and the international community at large, supported a strategy of parallelism that called for progress on both security and political issues to happen in lock-step. The collision of the concepts of parallelism and sequentialism made it impossible to reach the final destination envisioned in the Road Map.

With gridlock in the formal negotiating process, civil society groups tried to take the initiative. One example of several is the Geneva Accords of December 2003 led by PLO official Yasser Abed Rabbo and former Israeli Minister Yossi Beilin.

The stalemate in the process continued until Ehud Olmert’s election as Prime Minister in 2006. Through intense negotiations facilitated by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her team, the parties came close to striking a deal which would have pushed the peace process forward. However, as the end game of this phase of the negotiations, also known as the Annapolis process, unfolded, Prime Minister Olmert had to step down because of an indictment for alleged financial misconduct. At the same time also, a new wave of rockets emanating from Gaza, lead to a military operation in the Strip (Operation ‘Cast Lead’).

The scene and characters changed in early 2009 with the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, and Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel for a second time. Shortly after his inauguration, President Obama attempted to resuscitate the peace process with the appointment of a new high-level special envoy, Senator George Mitchell. An absolute freeze on settlements, including in Jerusalem, was made a precondition for bringing the parties to the table. This turned out to be a self-defeating proposal. For any Israeli Prime Minister, such a major move could only be the result of, and not the pre-condition for, negotiations.

During this paralysis, the Palestinian leadership looked for alternative ways of moving forward, and shifted their strategy from bilateralism to unilateralism through a bid to upgrade the Palestinian status to be on a par with the Vatican at the United Nations: that of an observer Member State in the General Assembly. This quest reached its climax during the UN General Assembly sessions of 2011 and 2012. In a speech to the General Assembly in September 2011, President Abbas called for admission of Palestine as a Member State of the United Nations. It reflected the growing frustration among the Palestinian community with the lack of progress since the end of the Annapolis process in 2008. In December 2012, the Palestinians were granted, with a large majority, state observer status at the UN.

ON PART III: UNITED NATIONS DOCUMENTS ON THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE

An accurate picture of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict must include an understanding of the role of the United Nations. Part III provides a comprehensive collection of Resolutions and documents which have significantly shaped the context of this seemingly intractable issue.

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