The UN: pressure cooker or release valve?

All the anticipation and manuevering surrounding Palestine’s membership bid culminated today in the speeches by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In their distinct styles, both leaders gave impassioned speeches and offered theatrical gestures. Abbas waved Palestine’s application for full membership and received a thunderous ovation. For his part, Netanyahu challenged ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

All the anticipation and manuevering surrounding Palestine's membership bid culminated today in the speeches by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In their distinct styles, both leaders gave impassioned speeches and offered theatrical gestures. Abbas waved Palestine's application for full membership and received a thunderous ovation. For his part, Netanyahu challenged Abbas to begin direct negotiations immediately in UN headquarters. "What is there to stop us?" he asked.

All the anticipation and manuevering surrounding Palestine’s membership bid culminated today in the speeches by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In their distinct styles, both leaders gave impassioned speeches and offered theatrical gestures. Abbas waved Palestine’s application for full membership and received a thunderous ovation. For his part, Netanyahu challenged Abbas to begin direct negotiations immediately in UN headquarters. "What is there to stop us?" he asked.

Meawnhile, the Quartet was reportedly finalizing a statement that would put the Palestinian membership application on ice while calling for accelerated peace negotiations. Taken together, the last few days of frenetic UN diplomacy have created the distinct impression that the status quo is unsustainable and that something must change–and fast. Players who normally say little about the Middle East peace process have all been forced to take stands on the advisability of the membership push. Various commentators have suggested that the days when the United States could effectively dominate the peace process have ended.

I think that impression is likely wrong. The European Union–desperately trying to save the Euro–has little time or energy to spend on Middle East peace. The Arab world is consumed by internal political change. I don’t sense any eagerness on the part of the BRICS to manage Middle East diplomacy. The hothouse atmosphere in New York is therefore deceiving–it has created the impression that an energetic round of newly multilateral Middle East diplomacy is about to break out. In fact, the drama and the theatrics may have had the opposite effect, serving as a form of ritualized political combat that will defuse pressure for action rather than galvanize it.

Behind the standing ovations and the genuine emotion of the debates is a world in turmoil. Key political leaders are distracted. To the extent they are focused on the world, their attention is directed toward avoiding an economic meltdown. The world’s leaders had a chance this week to vent their spleens about the Middle East. Barring dramatic events on the ground, that will probably be more than enough for them.   

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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