Palestinians' Option And The West's Double Standards

By Michael Jansen
This commentary was published in The Jordan Times on 02/06/2011 

Speaking at the Arab League’s meeting in Doha last weekend, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stated, more in sorrow than in anger: “We see from the conditions that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu laid out that there are no shared foundations for negotiations. Our fundamental option is to go to the United Nations” General Assembly to secure recognition of a Palestinian state within the lines of June 4, 1967.

He warned that this step would prompt some states to “try to impose a siege on us. We hope that there will be a safety net from the Arab states”.

Israeli experts estimate that 135 of the UN’s 192 members support this stand and say this figure could rise to 160 due to Netanyahu’s intransigence and Washington’s supine support for his stand.

Netanyahu is widely known as “Mr No” because he says “no” to everything the Palestinians demand as their right. Last week, octogenarian Israeli peace campaigner Uri Avneri remarked that the Arabs proclaimed three “nos” in 1967 after Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza: no to negotiations with Israel, no to recognition of Israel and no to peace with Israel. During his recent address to Congress, Avneri pointed out that Netanyahu had a much longer list of “nos” and elaborated on five.

I have also been counting “nos” and have come up with what I believe is a comprehensive list of “nos” which define Netanyahu’s policy and those of his predecessors, who often spoke of “painful compromises” for peace, but never made any because they regarded all of Palestine as what Netanyahu called “the ancestral Jewish homeland” to which, in the Zionist view, Palestinians have no claim and where, Zionists say, they have no place.

Netanyahu said there can be no negotiations until Palestinians recognise Israel as the homeland of the world’s Jews, a demand rejected by the Palestinians as it would compromise the status of Israel’s 1.5 million Muslim and Christian citizens of Palestinian origin.

He also insists that there can be no negotiations as long as Fateh sticks to its reconciliation accord with Hamas and no to a unity government of technocrats. These are phony demands because neither the authority nor the government negotiates with Israel. The negotiator is the Palestine Liberation Organisation to which Hamas and other religious resistance groups do not belong.

There can be no Palestinian plan to seek international recognition. If the Palestinians carry out this plan, Israel is threatening unspecified retaliation - perhaps by unilaterally annexing areas of the West Bank. But since Israel is expropriating and colonising Palestinian territory on daily basis, this is a meaningless threat.

Netanyahu spelled out his unacceptable vision of a Palestinian state when he said there could be no return to the ‘67 ceasefire lines, no return of Palestinian refugees to areas ultimately ceded to Israel, and no Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. There can be no Israeli military withdrawal from the Jordan Valley, ensuring that the West Bank would be totally surrounded by Israeli forces, which would control all frontiers except that between Gaza and Egypt. A Palestinian state would have no regular military forces and no control of its air space and electronic systems.

He made it clear that there can be no halt or freeze to the Israeli colonisation drive designed to make it impossible for the Palestinians to have a state. The unspoken no is that there will be no dismantling of these settlements but only Palestinian permission for these illegal colonies to remain within a Palestinian state.

Finally, he said there can be no imposed deal.

I have come up with 13 “nos”. There are likely to be more.

Netanyahu’s total “nos” is more than four times the Arabs’ three. Furthermore, his “nos” are current and growing in number.

At the Beirut summit in March 2002, the Arab leaders replaced the “three nos” with what I call the big yes. They called for full Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territory in exchange for full Arab normalisation and peace with Israel. Then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon responded to the big yes by reinvading Palestinian cities and towns evacuated under the Oslo accords and smashing up administrative infrastructure built by the Palestinians in the previous six years.

Although US President Barack Obama and other world leaders did not comment specifically on Netanyahu’s “nos”, Obama did warn Israel that it faces two distinct and growing dangers: Palestinians living within the area controlled by Israel are set to outnumber Israeli Jews in the coming few years and increasing anti-Israeli sentiment on the global scene.

He did not mention, however, that if Israel is to remain a “Jewish state”, its only means of tackling the Palestinian “demographic time bomb” is ethnic cleansing or apartheid.

He did not point out that if Israel resorts to either of these means, it will become a global pariah that even the US cannot continue to protect from its own folly or defend from pressure for sanctions, suspension from UN membership or, ultimately, “humanitarian intervention” on behalf of the Palestinians.

Due to the Arab Spring and changing perceptions of this region, the international community, led by the Western powers, cannot afford to intervene in Libya to prevent a massive humanitarian disaster but ignore the developing disaster in the Palestinian territories.

Ending The Yemen Bloodshed

A long-term political solution needs to take into account southern ambitions and the aspirations of the youth 

By Francis Matthew 
This commentary was published in The Gulf News on 02/06/2011 

There has been a genuine Arab Spring in Yemen as thousands of young people took to the streets over the past two months, but they have lost the initiative to established power groups. The way forward now does not look like being an interim government based on a popular movement, but more of a transfer to tribal or military leaders, and even that is looking less likely as civil war looms.

A large part of the Gulf Cooperation Council's most recent mediation efforts in April were based on trying to get President Ali Abdullah Saleh to hand over power to a combination of individuals with positions in the political and tribal structures. Saleh refused completely to contemplate giving power away to what he saw as the chaos of the incoherent groups of young people on the streets, and the GCC took this into account when it framed its suggestions of an interim government based on established figures.

But Saleh rejected the GCC deal at the last minute, which infuriated the GCC foreign ministers who had spent months trying to address his objections. It, therefore, seems that Saleh has made a rough calculation that the GCC with its American and European allies need him in place more than he needs to follow its suggestions. He probably thinks he has enough support to resist the opposition, and so feels able to ride out the storm.

But as more and more tribal and military leaders rise up against him, Saleh may have got it wrong. He might be heartened by the very out of touch statement by Catherine Ashton, foreign policy chief of the European Union, who this week condemned the use of force and live ammunition against peaceful protesters in the city of Taiz, adding that "the continued repression by the Yemeni regime and grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law cannot be accepted".

What she said was true, but as Yemen slips into what might be the start of a massive tribal clash, it is not the firing of live rounds that is the average Yemeni's concern. They are more concerned about getting out of the way of substantial government and tribal forces which can muster thousands of armed men, heavy artillery and other weaponry. Thousands of civilians have fled Sana'a this week, to avoid getting caught in the middle of a major war.

The political initiative was seized this week by Hamid Al Ahmar, when he rebelled against Saleh. A businessman and politician, Al Ahmar holds an important position in the major Hashid confederation. His elder brother Sadiq Al Ahmar is the paramount chief of the Hashid confederation, and they are the sons of the late Shaikh Abdullah Al Ahmar, who was a major figure in Yemeni politics till his death in 2007, backed by substantial Saudi influence. A third brother Hussain commanded the Saudi-backed Hashid militia in the recent fighting in Sa'ada.

Saudi concern

Hamid Al Ahmar's challenge will be viewed favourably by Saudi Arabia, which has had a close relationship with his family for decades. The Saudi leadership is the most concerned of all the GCC states that Yemen does not slip into chaos, and it will naturally back an alternative to Saleh based on northern leaders. And if Al Ahmar is dismissed as being just a businessman rather than a politician, his relative, General Ali Mohsin Al Ahmar is an effective military commander who has already rebelled against Saleh.

All this leaves Yemen's pro-democracy activists stranded. As Ginny Hill and Gerd Nonneman reported in a Chatham House paper on Yemen this week, the activists reject the idea of supporting a leadership bid from another member of the power elite.

They have promised to hold out for a peaceful transfer to a civilian authority. The activists are slowly developing their own management structure and deciding on mechanisms to nominate their leaders, but this was not sufficiently advanced to enable them to send observers to the GCC transition talks.

But others who are not yet part of the action are the leaders from the south. When Yemen united in 1990, the president of South Yemen, Ali Salim Al Beidh, became vice-president of the united country. He despaired that Saleh would not listen to his concerns, and resigned to lead a breakaway movement when he declared the Democratic Republic of Yemen, which only lasted in the south from May to June 1994. Al Beidh is the leader of Al Harak, a party dedicated to a southern breakaway.

The GCC sees Yemen as too important and too close to be allowed to fail. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Saudis ran massive grant programmes which they allowed to wither away after the border settlement in 2000. Now they are leading GCC efforts to find a political solution. They have reopened their links with northern political leaders like Al Ahmar to try and find a way forward.

But in the end, any long-term solution in Yemen will also need to take into account southern ambitions, as well as the new demands of the young people on the streets, who have time and demographics on their side, even if they have failed to find a leader to articulate their demands and take part in the talks this time round.

Did Bahrain Opposition Squander Democracy Chance?

By Andrew Hammond     
This commentary was published in The Kuwait Times on 02/06/2011 

As martial law ended in the Gulf Arab state of Bahrain, opposition activists are wondering whether they threw away what might have been the first real chance for democracy in the Gulf Arab region. Shortly after young Bahrainis, inspired by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, converged on a roundabout in early February, the government offered dialogue with opposition parties on political reforms. But the talks failed to get off the ground. After weeks of behind-the-scenes discussions during which sectarian tension worsened between the Shiite majority and Sunnis who saw the ruling Al-Khalifa family as protection, Saudi troops poured in on March 15, martial law was declared the next day and the roundabout encampment was broken up on March 16.

Critics say the leading opposition party Wefaq, headed by Sheikh Ali Salman, failed to show leadership during the unrest, allowing hardliners within the ruling family and among the Shi'ite opposition to steer events. "What a massively missed opportunity. Wefaq should have had the conviction to stand ahead of the others and sit at the table. I'm sure they rue it," one Western diplomat said. When talks eventually resume, he said, "the ceiling will be lower" and reforms could have been set back by a decade.

King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa authorised talks on democracy in 2001, but the opposition boycotted elections in 2002 because the upper house of parliament - royal appointees - was to retain key powers. Seven opposition parties including Wefaq took part in 2006 elections, but hardliners broke away to form the Haq movement. Haq's exiled leader returned during the protests on Feb 26 and announced with other groups on March 8 that he wanted to turn the small island kingdom into a republic. That was anathema to Saudi Arabia which financially backs Bahrain to help stave off Iranian influence.

On Tuesday King Hamad called for reform talks "without preconditions" from July 1. But the parameters were vague, and with opposition leaders in jail, protesters off the streets and Wefaq attacked daily in state media, the government will have the upper hand to steer them away from parliamentary reforms. Munira Fakhro of secular opposition group Waad says Wefaq was paralysed by fear of losing the street - Shiite protesters radicalised by the deaths of their comrades when security forces made a botched attempt to clear the roundabout on Feb. 17.

My analysis is that after all this anger and death among Shiites the street was tilted towards Mushaimaa. Ali Salman was afraid that if he accepted the crown prince's proposal without assurances he would be cheated at the end of the day," she said, referring to opposition anger over the upper assembly in 2002. "I told them, 'the crown prince wants to reach out to you but he's alone because no one is supporting him from his family, you must support him'.

Mushaimaa and the republic supporters are now among 21 men on military trial. The defendants also include Waad's Sunni leader Ibrahim Sharif and some independent Shiite rights activists prominent during the protests. Salman, a young cleric born in 1965, says he didn't agree with the escalation in protests or the open call for a republic, but acknowledges that they complicated the position of Wefaq and the rest of the opposition.

There is a view that we were late to respond to the call for dialogue, but we had our reasons," he said at Wefaq offices overlooking the waters of the Gulf. "We did not go to public talks, but we talked behind closed doors. I met the crown prince three times alone during the crisis and my working team was meeting his working team almost daily. But there were no results until March 13.

That day the crown prince said again he was interested in dialogue, but specified this time that it would centre on seven principles, including representative government and a parliament with full powers. On March 14, Wefaq and six other opposition groups said they wanted clarifications before entering direct talks with the crown prince.

The government and Sunni leaders have another theory for why the opposition appeared to drag their feet over negotiations: Wefaq was waiting for approval from Iran. "We think so. How else would you explain them not coming to the negotiating table?" said Sheikh Abdul-Aziz bin Mubarak Al-Khalifa, Senior International Counselor at the Information Affairs Authority. "We need a rational, practical leader who doesn't look for religious blessings before he can embark on a political reform initiative," he said. "We didn't see leadership emerging from their side and they didn't let themselves loose from radical elements or come to the negotiating table.

Sheikh Abdullatif Al-Mahmoud, leader of the mainly Sunni National Unity Rally which emerged as a counter-weight to the Shiite opposition during the unrest, goes further. "In the second week of March their clerics were telling the Shiite masses that the Hidden Imam was about to come. That held them up going into talks since they thought the Shiite state was coming," he said. The twelfth Imam of mainstream Shiism disappeared in 9th-century Iraq and many believe he will return one day. Mahmoud also suggested the US navy was coordinating with Wefaq and Iran could have been planning a military intervention.

Wefaq leaders roll their eyes at these accusations. They say they are not interested in Iran's system of clerical rule, and that in any case most Bahraini Shi'ites look to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Iraq as their reference in religious affairs. Bahrain's most senior Shiite cleric is Sheikh Issa Qassim. Mahmoud, Salman and other government and opposition figures spent all of March 13 at Wefaq offices in what proved to be fruitless last-minute talks before a decisive Saudi intervention.

Wefaq wanted a guarantee from the crown prince on elections to a constituent assembly to write a new constitution before entering face-to-face public talks. Mahmoud wanted the royal family to have guaranteed representation on the assembly and a high bar on the percentage required to approve constitutional amendments to avoid Sunnis being permanently hostage to Shiite numerical superiority. In a sign of the mistrust now prevailing, Mahmoud says that when news came in that Saudi troops were really coming, Salman stood up and announced: "We will seek the help of Iran." Wefaq says he never said that. - Reuters

Juppe's Visit To Israel And The Palestinian Territories

By Randa Takieddine 
This commentary was published in al-Hayat on 01/06/2011 

There is weak optimism about the results of the visit by French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe the day after tomorrow to Israel, where he will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Juppe will also visit Ramallah, where he will meet with the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, after meeting tomorrow evening with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Rome. No matter how strong Juppe's personality is, or the widespread respect he enjoys in France and the rest of the world, the problem lies in the obstinate positions of Netanyahu. This is especially after Netanyahu's return from Washington, where he received unprecedented support from the American Congress, which applauded more than 24 times when he gave his blindly ideological speech. Netanyahu's address contained nothing new with regard to the hope of negotiating with the Palestinians on the bases that were agreed to by the entire world, and endorsed by the International Quartet and the European Union. The French president has reiterated that the criteria for peace are known to all sides, but he could add that Netanyahu completely ignores them. Netanyahu returned from the United States with the support of Congress and his popularity has risen considerably in Israel, while his competitor, Tzipi Livni, has seen hers plummet. Under such circumstances, how will Juppe be able to achieve any change in the stance of Netanyahu, who rejects all of the principles and criteria of peace, as everyone knows? Netanyahu does not want peace and rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders; he rejects the ending of settlements and opposes Palestinian interests, while also rejecting Jerusalem as the capital of two states. What can he offer to his French friend, Sarkozy? Nothing. The European Union will continue as the main economic financer of Israel and Israel will continue to reject seeing France and the EU play any political role, contrary to what Netanyahu claims when he meets Sarkozy, in the presence of his foreign minister, Juppe. Netanyahu is aware that France's policy is more balanced than that of the US, and that Paris is asking that Israel and the Palestinians adhere to the criteria of peace. However, Netanyahu relies on Congress and its pressure on President Obama to remain in his rejectionist position vis-à-vis any negotiation or true peace with the Palestinians.

Sarkozy and Juppe are trying hard to re-launch negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli sides before September, when the Palestinian Authority wants the UN General Assembly to vote on recognizing a Palestinian state and ask the Security Council to admit a new member to the UN. The US will use its veto and it will be a difficult moment for all sides, including the Europeans.

Certainly, the French position that Juppe will try to discuss with Netanyahu is a balanced one, which looks to pushing the negotiations forward. But everyone in Paris knows that there is little hope for the possibility of seeing a successful mission by the French foreign minister, since the Israeli positions were laid out clearly in front of the US Congress; the Arabs, through the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, expressed their disappointment about the "seven No's" that Netanyahu put forth before the Congress, and said it represented a blow to the hopes of any peace. Juppe will meet Netanyahu after having met with Obama, Cameron and Merkel at the G8 Summit, in the presence of Sarkozy, followed by a meeting last night with Saudi Arabia's Prince Saud al-Faisal. The Europeans, especially Britain and France, are pushing for a resumption of negotiations, but Obama, and despite what he pledged in his speech when he spoke of the 1967 borders, will never confront Congress while preparing for his re-election campaign next year. There is little hope that France will succeed in convening a political conference that revives the peace talks, despite the energy of the French president and his efforts to move things forward.

It is true that Sarkozy says the existing situation on Palestinian-Israeli peace track is unacceptable, but Israel and its ally the US support this situation and if this were not the case, then things would be different. Perhaps the importance of Juppe's visit will be greater as he hears out the Palestinian side, especially Salam Fayyad and the young people of the civil society movement, and their analysis of what is taking place in terms of the domestic Palestinian situation and the formation of a government, and the Palestinian reconciliation that France supports and Sarkozy has welcomed. Juppe believes there is an opportunity that must be taken advantage of to convince Hamas to take steps that show the Palestinians are united on peace, and the issue of a Palestinian state.

The Israelis In Iran!

By Tariq Alhomayed
This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 01/06/2011 

We know that pragmatism is a part of politics, and that politicians deal with the public along the lines of "do as I say, not as I do". Yet this is all we know today with regards to the politics of our region, where Israeli ships, commercial or otherwise, have been anchored in Iranian ports for years, and this is another matter altogether!

Merely contemplating whether Israeli government authorities were aware of this or not is a waste of time. The story was not revealed in the Israeli newspaper "Yediot Aharonot", a title which the leader of Hezbollah uses to describe the professional Arab press when it is not to his liking. Likewise, this journalistic scoop was not revealed on the pro-Hezbollah "al-Manar" station, or the Iranian channel "al-Alam", both of which are preoccupied with supporting the Syrian regime. Rather, the story of the Israeli merchant ships – which have been visiting Tehran for years for commercial incentives - was exposed through the list of sanctions compiled by the U.S., against foreign companies doing business with Iran. Of course, now we understand why there are synagogues in Tehran, but not one Sunni mosque in the Iranian capital. It seems that religious tolerance depends on who visits the capital, how many, and their interests!

Of course, we should not be preoccupied with Israeli-Iranian relations, whether in terms of arms, oil or otherwise, but let's look at the impact of this on Iran's agents in the region. These agents include countries such as Syria, where demonstrators are chanting "no to Iran, no to Hezbollah, we want a Muslim [leader] who fears God", militias such as Hezbollah, and even media outlets and groups speaking in the name of democracy, such as what is happening in Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait and so on. This term could even extend to the Egyptian delegation, which is visiting Iran for reasons we do not know, and under unknown political sponsorship…Certainly the impact will be negative, but is this important?

The answer is no. What is important here are the Arab citizens who are untainted by political currents, rather than those who entertain Iranian fancies, especially as the Iranians and their affiliates in our region, whether agents or allies, often accuse the Arabs, or the respected Arab media, of having relations with Israel. This is what we see today in the Syrian media, which does not hesitate to formulate lies to undermine the Syrian uprising, and the Arab sympathy towards it. Therefore, the most important thing is to alert the Arab citizen untainted by ideology, so he can see how Iran behaves in the region under the pretext of challenging Israel, whilst opening its ports to Israeli ships, and what we don't know is unquestionably greater.

It is also important for the Arab citizen to note the difference between those who hold clear and declared links with Israel, in accordance with agreements, and those who attack Israel throughout the day, and then open their shores to it in the shadows. Iran claims to support the rights of the Palestinians, and supports the "resistance" in Lebanon and Syria, in order to stand against Israel, whilst describing the Arab regimes committed to their Arab identity and interests as agents of Israel. Yet the reality today suggests that Iran is at the very least a business partner to Israel in the region!

Therefore we say: do the Israeli ships constitute a scandal for Iran? The answer is no. Tehran is now far beyond scandals, but we must alert the Arabs who have been duped by Iran. Will they now wake up?

The Middle East: All process, No progress

The Palestinian UN recognition strategy attempts to circumvent nonexistent negotiations, but it can't get round a US veto

By Carne Ross
This commentary was published in The Guardian on 01/06/2011

US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the White House: a tense meeting did little to raise hopes of a peace deal any time soon. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP

 

Whenever an international problem starts being called a "process", one should immediately become suspicious that the problem itself will not be solved. Indeed, the naming of a problem as a "process" is a way to obscure lack of progress with endless anaesthetising conferences, meetings and statesmanlike speeches.

The climate change "process" demonstrates this dismal rule: after years of preparatory meetings, and two major global conferences in Copenhagen and Cancún, this "process" has yet to agree any concrete action to limit carbon emissions. And, of course, the mother of all empty processes is the Middle East "peace process".

There has been much talk about Israel and the Palestinians in recent days. Speeches by President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu have offered almost mutually exclusive visions of the outlines of a possible Israeli-Palestinian settlement. Virtually the only element common to both was that neither offered any suggestion about how to reach any deal. Netanyahu refused any engagement with a Fatah-Hamas government. Obama's two speeches said not a word about convening any kind of Israeli-Palestinian negotiation. The US president seems to be despairing of this "process".

For their part, the Palestinians have concluded some time ago that the "peace process" is a hollow vessel. Hamas chose, instead, the dead end of violence. The Fatah-led government in the West Bank has, by contrast, pursued the project of building a viable Palestinian state in the areas under its control. Internationally, the PLO has been steadily recruiting states around the world to recognise the Palestinian state, an effort planned to culminate in September at the UN general assembly where, the Palestinians hope, the general assembly will adopt a resolution accepting the existence of a Palestinian state.

The PLO has not yet formally adopted this strategy and, in the absence of clarity, misunderstandings about this "UN recognition strategy" have multiplied. Some rightwing commentators have suggested that such a decision at the UN will amount to the "delegitimisation" of Israel, failing to acknowledge that Israel's current status at the UN would remain unaffected, and a resolution would not alter the fact that no UN member state has ever accepted Israel's occupation of the West Bank or Gaza, or that Jerusalem's status is yet to be determined. Meanwhile, Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz called the Palestinian strategy a "UN declaration of a Palestinian state" and the Economist, too, seems to think that the UN can recognise a state. This is not the case. The UN does not recognise states; only other states can. The UN can, however, agree to make a state a member, once it has been recognised by others. But contrary to much commentary, even this is far from straightforward.

As is usual, all the serious decisions at the UN are in the power of the security council, which is required to recommend a state for membership to the general assembly. And here lies one problem with the PLO's strategy: that recommendation will not be forthcoming thanks to an American veto, as Obama's speech made clear, with emphasis.

Realising this potential obstacle, the PLO may choose to vest its hopes in various procedural devices to get around the security council, including what is called the "Uniting for Peace" procedure. Under this procedure, first used by the US in 1950 to circumvent a Soviet block on UN intervention in Korea, the general assembly can take on an issue of international peace and security when its members agree that the security council has failed its own responsibility to do so.

The UN has never accepted a new member using procedural devices like this. And it may be a precedent that many member states, including Palestine's many sympathisers at the UN, do not want established. Russia, for instance, may be loath to open the door to Kosovo's membership, which it currently refuses to recognise. But worst of all, even if such a resolution were to attract enough supporters (as would be likely), bypass the security council (which is less likely) and become a full member state of the UN or, perhaps, an observer state as a fallback, it would do little to end Israel's occupation.

The PLO seems to be calculating that UN membership will grant Palestine new legal status with which to fight Israel's occupation and define the final settlement. These outcomes are by no means guaranteed. In any case, the Palestinians hope that the UN strategy will provide vivid evidence of Israel's international isolation, compelling Israel to come to the table – or compelling the Americans to make them. As such, the strategy makes sense and the PLO cannot be blamed for trying something, anything, given Netanyahu's obdurate refusal to contemplate a deal – a two-state solution based more or less on the 1967 borders – that every one else in the world regards both as reasonable and long overdue.

But the putative UN strategy is flawed. Both Israel and the US have endured almost total isolation at the UN for decades, to no palpable effect on their policies except to intensify their rejection of the UN as a place to address the dispute. September's vote, if it goes through, will doubtless have the same consequence.

Since the 1967 security council resolution (pdf), which demanded Israel's withdrawal from territories it had occupied during the six day war, reams of international law and countless debates at the UN have promised much to the Palestinians, but delivered nothing. The only time Israel has actually withdrawn from the occupied territories was as a result of a negotiated agreement with the PLO following the 1993 declaration of principles.

In unfortunate resemblance to both the current Israeli and US approaches, the Palestinian UN strategy offers nothing about how to reach a settlement with the one country whose recognition of Palestine really matters: Israel. Instead, September's looming confrontation at the UN promises an outcome all too familiar to those who follow this ill-fated "process": argument and antagonism to nil material effect. As Rashid Khalidi has wisely argued, the Palestinians should not rely on traditional routes, including American diplomacy, to achieve their state: the non-violent protests of the "Arab spring" offer a better, if uncertain, prospect.

The endless speechifying and diplomatic manoeuvring of the misnamed "peace process" has occupied statesmen, diplomats and commentators for decades, providing a simulacrum of progress when none, in fact, exists. The next few months will see yet more activity and diplomacy, risking distraction from the reality of continuing settlement building and mounting frustration of ordinary Palestinians living under an occupation that promises no end. With tension rising between Israel and its neighbours, and with it the risk of international conflict, no one can regard this situation as acceptable.

And no one should allow themselves the illusion that more rhetoric and an empty process, at the UN, in Washington or anywhere else, will solve it.

Carne Ross is a former British diplomat, serving for 15 years before resigning after giving evidence to the Butler Inquiry into the use of intelligence on Iraq's WMD in 2004. He then founded and now runs Independent Diplomat, a non-profit diplomatic advisory organisation, which consults for democratic countries and groups across the world. He is based in New York.

Revealed: Gaddafi's Taste For Despot Chic

Pictures of Libya's embattled tyrant in talks with the South African President reveal a taste in interior design that could only be a dictator's 

By Peter York 
This commentary was published in The Independent on 01/06/2011

EPA

South African President Jacob Zuma meets Colonel Gaddafi in Tripoli

There is an undeniable news value to the pictures released yesterday of Colonel Gaddafi in talks with the South African President, Jacob Zuma. But it is hard to look at them without being struck as well by their aesthetic implications. Here, surely, is – among other things – an interior fashion moment, an exotic global celebrity version of London's currently leading Big Money interior look: Dictator Style.  

These aren't exactly Andreas von Einsiedel's carefully composed full-room shots for House and Garden. They're just corners of Chateau Gaddafi, reportedly part of his much-bombarded Bab Al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli But they're enough for me, because this style has been one of my special subjects since I researched and wrote a whole book about it, Dictators' Homes, published in 2005. True, there are more urgent stories coming out of Libya. Yet these scenes offer an insight into the embattled despot's mind.

I could walk just 500 yards from my own gorgeous Regency house in W1 to the Edgware Road – the top, Marble Arch end – and knock on any door in the big houses and blocks there and find this look. And in Mayfair and Knightsbridge, too. It's the aesthetic of everyday rich folk in petro-dollar world; and of dictators. 

So what have we got here, in this tiny but semiotically loaded corner? Check it out against our "get the look" 10-point plan for Dictator Style. First there's more shiny new gold than you could shake a stick at. It's everywhere – all over the chairs, with their flaming gilt-wood backdrops for the dictatorly head; on the low table; on the gilded eagle-on-orb affair; in the gilded plates and hero-of-the-desert trophies in the glass cases behind them; in the gold-leafed filets at the edge of those cabinets; and on the miniature stately galleon rendered in metal just behind Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi's extraordinary head with its perpetual shades.

Then there's the power and aggression symbolism of Animal Heroes. You can't go wrong with a lion or an eagle, hence this rather odd-looking object with its silver and silver gilt; its horned perch, its studding of precious and semi-precious stones. And below is another kind of power symbol, popular in this kind of decoration: photographs of Me (Lion-of-the-People, Beloved Leader, whatever...) with other Men of Destiny. 

The furniture is repro, or, more precisely, repro classic French furniture – the favoured style, practically the only furniture style in this aesthetic. Ancien Régime Froggy is favoured because it's studded and slathered with so much gold. But it's usually interpreted pretty freely to squeeze out that last anachronistic bit – like the flaring headrest. The fabric will usually be new, shiny (never aged or faded; shabby isn't chic in Dictatorland) brocaded silk, as here. Silk that miraculously looks nearly as good as polyester. 

The built-in furniture features another familiar theme: expensive exotic wood veneers. It looks like bird's-eye maple, once a deco favourite, in the lighter panels. And French polished to high heaven. Why have matt when you can have shiny? 

The dinner table shot is pretty good too, like a still from one of those 1990s Channel 4 comedy series with lookalikes. It has overtones of Simon Amstell's dinner-with-mum-in-Finchley comedy, Grandma's House, too: this mass murderer of his people sitting down with Jacob Zuma, former ANC rebel boy, now looking like a worried old bank manager. And it's a bit Hyacinth Bucket, too. The short apricot silk curtains above more birds-eye maple cabinets with twinkly cut-glass handles. There are heavily cut crystal wine and water glasses (Royal Stewart?), a cobalt-blue rimmed dinner service, almost certainly made in Stoke-on-Trent, and a blaze of Home Counties blossom beyond the window with its rather utilitarian bronze finish handle.  

But, behind it all, lifting this positively suburban bit of comic domesticity, framing Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi's head again, is the crucial material of Dictator Style: marble. Attractively redundant, non-structural marble mini-columns (they could actually be alabaster, but it's the look that counts). Marble is money, marble is Imperial, marble is historic, as in Alma-Tadema's visions of Roman baths. Marble is crucial. 

So far, so absolutely by-the-book in just this little corner of a North African palace that's forever Big London 2011. So what's the betting that the rest of the rooms would display the following features? 

First, bigging it up. I'd expect these rooms to be seriously oversized. Bigging it up helps you to impress and intimidate, central to the everyday work of dictators. Then you'd expect a lot more shiny glass. At least two monster chandeliers of the old Dubai Hilton kind. Chandelier drops, the diamonds of interior decoration, glittering away against massive mirrors, framed in yet more gorgeous gold (never "distressed" or knocked back), give that Ferrero Rocher look instantly. 

And that elusive picture of the roomscape in the round will make you think of the eclectic glories of one interior style above all others. It'll make you think hotel or, more precisely, the extraordinary eclecticism of the public spaces in a top-of-the-range Sheraton or Hilton from around the early 1970s. Just the time people like Colonel Gaddafi were picking up hints to gracious living. Those hotels combined the most modern steel-frame construction with an amazing Monster Mash of period references in their decoration, plus reassuring suburban Americana to make their American Express corporate guests feel at home.  

Be aware: Dictator Style isn't ironic. It may not be exactly your moment, Mr Islington television producer, with your distressed brown leather chairs from Upper Street, or Mrs Notting Hillybilly with your New England clapboard and 1950s chintz Cath Kidston bathroom, but it is one version of the Top Dog style in non-dom prime and super-prime Big London. The place where overseas buyers, as we know from Savills research, predominate. Not only is Knightsbridge already a corner of Dubai but the Arab Spring means that Middle Eastern Flight Capital will take an even bigger share of the largest houses and flats in Central London over the next couple of years. Mayfair is probably off-limits for Colonel Gaddafi's next move, but just think, where are the Mubaraks, with their X billions, going to end up? Or even the top Bahraini Bananas? And where will they turn to for the look they love? It has to be Salon Française of the Edgware Road...

Peter York's 'Dictators' Homes' is published by Atlantic Books