It's bad enough the Palestinians want to bypass peace talks with Israel by getting UN support for unilateral statehood.
Now, a Christian Science Monitor staff-ed calls on the US to "quietly acquiesce" the move.
The state of Israel was created out of a 1947 UN resolution that called for both a Jewish and Arab state in the Holy Land. And the Palestinians long ago unilaterally declared a state of their own, but that wasn’t enough to force Israel to support such a step.
With little chance ahead that Obama has the clout with Israel to achieve a negotiated, two-state solution, he should now take an even-handed approach and let the Palestinians seek help at the United Nations.
Yes, Israel was created by a UN resolution. But the Monitor fails to note a crucial point: the UN partition plan would have created a Palestinian state too, had the Arab world not denounced the partition and went to war.
I'll let Jackson Diehl explain why a green light for the PA's UN approach isn't even-handed:
Seeking a UN declaration of statehood would have one big advantage for Abbas: It could give him an excuse to avoid further talks with Netanyahu indefinitely. The Palestinian leader has made it clear ever since the Israeli prime minister took office in early 2009 that he does not want to negotiate with him. That could be because Abbas doesn't believe that Netanyahu will ever offer acceptable terms for Palestinian statehood. Or, it could be that the aging Palestinian leader is unwilling to consider any realistic terms for peace, since those would involve major — and dangerous — compromises. An imaginary state, like that declared by Arafat, is a lot easier to found.
