YEARENDER: New year starts off with Mideast conflict impasse

By Ofira Koopmans Dec 12, 2011, 2:06 GMT

Tel Aviv - On paper, the coming year should bring a Security Council vote on Palestine's UN membership application; Palestinian elections on May 4; and an international deadline for an Israeli- Palestinian peace deal by the end of 2012.

In reality, there is stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians. There is stalemate in the internal Palestinian arena. And there is stalemate in the Security Council.

Even if overshadowed by the Arab Spring, three-quarters of 2011 went by with Palestinians anticipating and Israelis dreading the arrival of September, the target set by Abbas to ask for Palestine to be recognized as a UN member state - regardless of the status of peace negotiations with Israel.

Abbas submitted Palestine's historic application to the Security Council on September 23, but it soon became clear the Palestinians had the support of only eight of the council's 15 members.

The application hit a cul-de-sac when the Security Council's Committee on the Admission of New Members reported in mid-November it had been unable to reach a unanimous decision.

The Palestinians say they will try their luck again after new non-permanent members join the Security Council - this January and the next - until they muster the nine 'yes' votes needed to at least force the US to use its veto.

For the moment, a vote does not loom. But that did not mean the Palestinians are withdrawing their application or have given up their efforts in the Security council, a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official said.

'We believe we have a right and we are going to exercise that right,' he told dpa - 'at the right moment.'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a different picture, one of the Palestinians possibly having succumbed to US pressure and Israeli threats to suspend the transfer of tax revenues to the cash-starved Palestinian Authority (PA).

Netanyahu has said he had been told the Palestinians had unofficially frozen their 'unilateral steps' in the UN.

The Palestinians say they have no current plans to apply to additional UN agencies, after they won one round on October 31 when UNESCO voted to admit Palestine as its 195th member state. The 107-14 vote with 52 abstentions could be seen as a dress rehearsal for the bigger prize.

It is now up to Abbas next year to decide whether to ask the General Assembly to accept Palestine as a non-member observer state, as an interim step, said the Palestinian official.

One huge obstacle for the Palestinians is the de facto split between Gaza, taken over by Hamas in 2007, and the West Bank, controlled by Fatah. Opponents have used it as one argument why Palestine does not yet meet all criteria of statehood.

Abbas and Khaled Mashaal declared in Cairo last spring they had ended their bitter dispute, allowing long-overdue Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections to take place in one year.

But, since then, Abbas' Fatah party and Mashaal's Hamas have bickered over who should be premier of an interim unity government.

Observers are highly sceptical the parties will succeed in settling all their differences in the few months left until May 4.

Meanwhile, fresh efforts by international mediators to revive long-stalled peace talks have hit a familiar wall.

The Palestinians refuse to negotiate unless Israel freeze settlement activity. Israel insists on negotiations without preconditions and refuses another settlement freeze.

An Israeli government official charged that proposals submitted by the Palestinians on borders and security to envoys of the Quartet - the US, EU, UN and Russia - were a 'regurgitation' of old material. Israel would only submit its proposals in direct negotiations, he told dpa on condition of anonymity.

If the Palestinian boycott of the hardline Netanyahu is a bet on the next Israeli government, they may be disillusioned.

A survey published by Israel's Channel 2 on October 26 - shortly after a major prisoners swap with Hamas that freed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from five years of captivity in Gaza - showed support for Netanyahu's Likud go up from 27 to 37 mandates in the 120-seat Knesset.

Palestinians are deeply disappointed with US President Barack Obama, who they say sounds more pro-Israeli as the US elections in November come closer.

Israel too is scheduled to head into elections towards the end of 2012.

But without negotiations or any prospect for an agreement, Israelis, disillusioned with the peace process as are Palestinians, are unlikely to vote for parties supporting the process.