The Palestinian move to seek international recognition of a state of Palestine, even under occupation, reflects not only frustration with the pace of peace efforts but an understandable desperation - a recognition that the situation is nearing a tipping point where developments on the ground in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in particular settlements and settlement-related infrastructure - will soon make the two-state solution impossible. The Palestinians' quest for recognition reflects this loss of faith in a negotiated settlement as well as a laudable commitment by the Palestinian Authority to use only non-violent means to try to gain leverage.

While it is the Palestinians' right to seek international recognition of a state of Palestine, even under Israeli occupation, unilateral actions, by Israel or the Palestinians, will never be a substitute for negotiations and cannot resolve the conflict - something that the Palestinian leadership itself has recognized even in the context of this effort. U.S. demands that the Palestinians desist from this effort will be irrelevant until such time as a credible negotiating process is re-established. Absent such a renewed and reinvigorated process, support for recognition of Palestine, outside a negotiated peace agreement, can be expected to gain significant momentum. Eventually, Israel could find itself opposing recognition of Palestine by the UN - a difficult case for Israel to make, given that it was the UN that gave birth to Israel after Israel's founders went to that body with their own demand for recognition.

Courageous U.S. leadership and engagement are vital to restoring faith in negotiations that can deliver a two-state solution in the near term - the only real answer to the Palestinian statehood issue. APN also reject efforts to use the issue of international recognition of Palestine as a pretext for imposing additional conditions or sanctions on the Palestinians.

(Feb. 2011)