The Syrian Government was involved in Annan’s planning discussions, and apparently agrees with this proposal. It has already been presented to the Arab League, before it goes to the UNSC today.

Reuters is reporting that “A six-day-old truce has held in some parts of Syria since President Bashar al-Assad pledged to enforce it last week. But in strong opposition areas such as Homs, Hama, Idlib and Deraa the army continues to attack and battle rebels, using heavy weapons in violation of the pledge by Damascus to pull back. After negotiations led by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan acting as envoy of the United Nations and Arab League, Assad’s government has agreed to allow a small U.N. force to monitor the ceasefire. But the planned 250-strong mission is a fraction of the size of U.N. peacekeeping forces sent to other conflicts, raising doubt among Assad’s opponents about whether it can be effective or will serve as a figleaf substitute for more robust action”. This is reported here \.

Meanwhile, Syrians are still singing and dancing in the streets in a display of popular mobilization that appears to be extraordinarily energizing. A video shot this week in Douma has been posted here:

UPDATE: Later, the number went up from 250 to 300 observers, Reuters reported on Thursday 19 April: “In a letter to the Security Council on Wednesday, [UNSG] Ban said Syria had not fully complied with Annan’s six-point peace plan but still outlined plans to deploy up to 300 observers for three months to supervise a fragile truce between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and opposition fighters seeking to oust him. Ban said the observers would be deployed incrementally over a period of weeks, in approximately ten locations throughout Syria. He said an earlier UN proposal for 250 observers was insufficient. Ban also said that the freedom of access of the advance monitoring team was imperfect. It was allowed to visit Deraa but not the battle-scarred town of Homs”.

Agence France Presse [AFP] reported from Paris Thursday that at a meeting of countries called “Friends of Syria”, who apparently support tough sanctions against Syria, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe “called for tough sanctions against Damascus and for the small UN observer team on the ground to be boosted to 300 or 400-strong and made ‘robust and credible’ by being given land and air transport to cover the country”. Juppe complained that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did not attend the Paris meeting today. This is reported here.

The Reuters report on Wednesday touched on a mystery that emerged when the UNSC voted last week unanimously to send in an advance team of 30 unarmed military observers: “Norwegian General Robert Mood took a team in on April 5 and returned to brief Annan on April 10. He has not appeared publicly since, leading to speculation that he was disassociating himself from a mission he could not endorse. ‘The mystery of the missing mission chief’ needs to be cleared up, the Beirut Daily Star said on Tuesday. If he was unwilling to lead a mission of limited reach and under Syrian control ‘it is crucial now for Mood to speak up’, it said”…

Criticism has expanded, however, concerning the modus operandi of the UN unarmed military observers.

UPDATE: The NYTimes The Lede blog posted two scathing reports in a row, about decisions taken by the advance team of unarmed military observers here, and also here.

Some 5 or 6 of the observers were to arrive within hours — Russia’s Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said that one Russian would be coming from the Golan Heights [Syrian-claimed territory occupied by Israel since June 1967].

Another 20 military observers were supposed to be in Damascus within 24 hours.

Kofi Annan, former UNSG who now represents both the current UNSG BAN Ki-Moon and the Arab League, is due to present a more detailed plan by 18 April for a more substantial UN “supervising” mission in Syria.

Russia and China, who vetoed a previous proposed UNSC resolution on Syria, said that they could go along with this one because it respected Syrian government sovereignty…

Russia’s representative, Vitaly Churkin, complained at length however about hearing other representatives on the Security Council misrepresent the terms of the resolution — the

Syria’s representative Jaafari said that the resolution was not balanced, but added that his government would live with it because of the need to reestablish order in the country. Jaafari bitterly blamed outsiders — he named Saudi Arabia as one — for interfering, due to a long-standing rivalry between “Pan-Arabism and Political Islam”. And Jaafari blamed money coming from “Salafist and Wahhabi” sources for the acts of terror that he said have been committed by gangs operating throughout the country…

Iran does “have the know-how to assemble a nuclear warhead, if they want to do it … it depends on their decision”, he said.

Gilad spoke on Tuesday 2 April to diplomats, military attaches, ranking UNTSO “blue beret” military observers, and journalists at a briefing at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs [JCPA].

He suggested in his talk that he is enjoying some sort of retirement [at least, from direct responsibility for intelligence, he implied] — but he is still described as the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s Director of Policy and Political-Military Affairs.

“I agree there’s no existential threat to Israel [now], but if Iran develops nuclear weapons, that could change. It [the threat to Israel from Iran] becomes serious”, Gilad said.

About Iran’s leadership, Gilad said, “We need to be humble. They are not stupid… Consider your enemy as more intelligent than you. If Israel tells them something, they will ignore it — unless they come to the same conclusion themselves. And [Iran knows] there is a consensus now”.

He said, “the moment they feel immune, they will [might] cross the Rubicon”. But, he noted, even if they do the opposite, and pull back from the brink, “they will keep the capability”.

Gilad spoke on Tuesday.

By Friday [allowing time for translations, reaction, and reportage], there appeared to be confirmation of this from Iran itself.

The Associated Press published a headline-making story, datelined Tehran, picked up by media from around the world, reporting that prominent Iranian parliamentarian Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam “said Iran can easily produce the highly enriched uranium that is used to build atomic bombs but it is not Tehran’s policy to go that route”. According to AP, Moghadam told icana.ir that “There is a possibility for Iran to easily achieve more than 90 (percent) enrichment”. One place this report was published was here.

But, the Iranian politician said more than that. He said that Iran can also actually produce a nuclear weapon — and that takes more than just highly-enriched uranium: “‘Iran has the scientific and technological capability to produce (a) nuclear weapon, but will never choose this path’, Moghadam told the parliament’s news website, icana.ir, late Friday”.

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius [@IgnatiusPost on Twitter] reported that Obama sent message to Iran via Turkey last week [but "delicate issue" of enrichment not clear]. Ignatius’ WPost story [see below] is posted here.

Amos Gilad [IDF Maj-Gen res] said Iran has 5,5 tons of Lightly Enriched Uranium and is “dealing with” 20% enrichment [warheads need higher, over 90% enrichment].

Iran’s stock of Lightly Enriched Uranium at 3-4% is the degree used to run civilian nuclear power plants, as Iran says it’s preparing to do.

It seems that this Iranian claim now being accepted … or, at least, it is not considered as alarming as it previously was, in recent years.

But 20% enrichment of uranium [Iran has experimented with at least two different technologies to arrive at this level] is another matter. Iran has explained that its 20% enriched uranium is for medical usage [in a research reactor that will produce medical isotopes to treat cancer, etc.]

Amos Gilad [IDF Maj-Gen res] furrowed his brow and shook his head, when he spoke about Iran’s uranium enrichment program…

Apparently, 20% enrichment is too much — perhaps because once there’s capability to enrich uranium to 20% level, it becomes possible to do more or less the same to arrive at military grade +90%.

UPDATE: Haaretz is now reporting that “Israel has signaled it would accept, as a first priority, world powers focusing on persuading Iran to stop higher-level uranium enrichment when they resume stalled nuclear negotiations this week with Tehran … ‘We told our American friends, as well as the Europeans, that we would have expected the threshold for successful negotiations to be clear, namely that the P5+1 will demand clearly that – no more enrichment to 20 percent’, [Israel's Defense Minister Ehud] Barak said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS to be aired on Sunday. Iran’s stocks of 20 percent-pure uranium should be removed ‘to a neighboring, trusted country’, Barak said, according to an advance transcript of the interview … Asked about Barak’s comments to CNN, another Israeli official confirmed that the Netanyahu government was focusing lobbying efforts on Iran’s 20-percent pure uranium but said the long-term goal remained the ending all of its enrichment work. ‘The understanding that has emerged in our contacts with the powers is that there should be a staggered approach’, the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Western diplomats have similarly stressed that an initial focus on 20 percent enrichment should not be seen as ‘legitimizing’ lower-level work as the UN Security Council has demanded a full suspension”. This is reported here.

Amos Gilad said at the JCPA briefing last Tuesday: “Obama is talking about nuclear missile = nuclear weapon. We are talking about capability”.

“The President of the U.S., in September 2010 at the UN, exposed the Iranian’s top secret project of Qum”, Gilad said, referring to the 20% enrichment effort. Now, Gilad added, “the [American] President has upgraded to saying he will not tolerate a nuclear Iran. He said it publicly in a very serious way. He’s committed not to us, but to the whole world”.

He added: “I try to be very simple: I think a nuclear Iran is not tolerable for Israel, for the U.S., and for the West … [and even if you analyze the Chinese position] … Does this oblige Iran? [Ayatollah] Khamene’i can do whatever he wants. History will then judge him”, Gilad said.

Gilad said that Turkey’s position was interesting: “If Iran gets nuclear weapon, Turkey – to be very gentle – will be very upset”.

According to David Ignatius’ report Friday in the Washington Post, published here, “President Obama has signaled Iran that the United States would accept an Iranian civilian nuclear program if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei can back up his recent public claim that his nation ‘will never pursue nuclear weapons’ … The statement highlighted by Obama as a potential starting point was made on state television in February. Khamenei said: ‘The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons … Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous’. … Obama didn’t specify whether Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium domestically as part of the civilian program the United States would endorse. That delicate issue evidently would be left for the negotiations that are supposed to start April 13, at a venue yet to be decided … As Iran’s leadership debates its negotiating stance, the squeeze of Western sanctions is becoming tighter. Nat Kern, the editor of Foreign Reports, a leading oil newsletter, forecasts that Iran will lose about a third of its oil exports by mid-summer. It may get even worse for Iran after July 1 if China and the European Union follow through on recent warnings that they might stop insuring tankers carrying Iranian crude”.

On Saturday, The New York Times published an article by David Sanger and Steven Erlanger, posted here, which reported that “In interviews, administration officials said their ‘urgent priority’ was to get Iran to give up — and ship out of the country — its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity, and to get Tehran to close Fordo. Dismantlement, they said, would come in a second stage. So far Iran has produced only about 100 kilograms of 20 percent-enriched uranium — less than it would need to produce a single nuclear weapon — but it has announced plans to increase production sharply in coming months. It is unclear whether that is possible: sanctions, embargos on crucial parts and Western sabotage have all delayed the program. But because that fuel could be so quickly converted to highly enriched uranium for a bomb, the American and European strategy is to eliminate that stockpile, leaving time to negotiate on the fate of lower-enriched uranium. Uranium enriched to about 5 percent does not pose as imminent a risk, but the United Nations Security Council has required that Iran halt all enrichment … Others, however, are more willing to allow Iran some enrichment capabilities. ‘What we are looking for is a way to acknowledge Iran’s right to enrich, but only at levels that would give us plenty of warning if they moved toward a weapon’, one European diplomat familiar with the internal debates said”.

It is worth noting that European officials participating in the series of negotiations with Iran that have gone on for nearly a decade do not refer to these talks as “P5+1″ [meaning, Germany plus the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, who are also the world's only "official"/or legitimate nuclear weapons state, as defined in the 1967 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty].

No.

The Europeans call these negotiations the “P3+3″ talks [meaning, Germany plus France and the UK, who are the two European Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, along with the other three Permanent Members of the UNSC, who are the US, Russia, and China].

As the NYTimes story stated, “the United Nations Security Council has required that Iran halt all enrichment”.

The NYTimes report noted that “While the six nations in the talks — Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany — are prepared to allow Iran to have a nuclear power program, they say Iran must first restore its credibility and prove that it does not in fact have a military nuclear program. It can do so, they say, by allowing agency inspectors full access to all Iranian sites … The Western negotiators all agree that in the first round of talks, Iran must prove its willingness to discuss its nuclear program without preconditions. In the last talks in January 2011, Tehran demanded that the six first lift all sanctions against Iran and recognize what Iran says is its ‘right to enrich’. Last week, apparently in preparation for the meeting, Mr. Obama delivered a message to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, through an intermediary: Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mr. Erdogan met Mr. Obama during a summit meeting in Seoul late last month and then went directly to northeastern Iran. The message, American officials said, was that ‘there is great urgency’ that Iran seriously negotiate now”.

The Washington Post and the New York Times stories were serious signals about the American negotiating aims.

UPDATE: Another NYTimes story published today [about drones collecting evidence over Iran for some three years, until one "crashed" inside Iran in December] reported this: “The expanded espionage effort has confirmed the consensus view expressed by the U.S. intelligence community in a controversial estimate released publicly in 2007. That estimate concluded that while Iran remains resolutely committed to assembling key building blocks for a nuclear weapons program, particularly enriched uranium, the nation’s leaders have opted for now against taking the crucial final step: designing a nuclear warhead. ‘It isn’t the absence of evidence, it’s the evidence of an absence’, said one former intelligence official briefed on the findings. ‘Certain things are not being done’.” This is published here.

Israeli position was explained, with somewhat less nuance than expressed by Amos Gilad a few days earlier, in a couple of stories last week in the Jerusalem Post.

On Wednesday, the Jerusalem Post reported here that “Israel and the US share almost all of their intelligence assessments regarding Iran and, for example, share the opinion that Iran has yet to make the decision to begin enriching uranium to higher military-grade levels and begin building a bomb.
Barak admitted, however, that there were differences between Israel and the US over his claim that Iran was moving into an ‘immunity zone’ and that if Israel waits too long its military option might not be viable past the end of the year. ‘This is part of the difference between us and the Americans’, the defense minister said.”

The same article, written by the well-briefed JPost Defense Correspondent Yaakov Katz, says that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave a “rare” briefing to military correspondents in which he “revealed what Israel’s goals are for the talks:
1) transfer of all uranium enriched to 20 percent – approximately 120 kg. – out of Iran to a third party country;
2) the transfer of the majority of the 5 tons of uranium enriched to 3.5% out of Iran, leaving just enough needed for energy purposes;
3) the closure of the Fordow enrichment facility, buried under a mountain near the city of Qom;
4) the transfer of fuel rods from a third party country to Iran for the purpose of activating the Tehran Research Reactor”.

In a new article published in the JPost heretoday [Easter Sunday, 8 April], Katz wrote that Defense Minister Barak just said that “Iran must open all of its nuclear facilities to the IAEA, and disclose its entire history of activity related to the allegation of developing a nuclear weapon, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday. Barak added this new stipulation to previous conditions he laid out last week, which he reiterated Sunday in light of a New York Times report that laid out the United States’ list of demands for Iran over its nuclear program … The Times article, which was published on Saturday, said the US would demand at upcoming P5+1 talks with Iran that Tehran close its underground nuclear facility at Fordow, and transfer out of the country uranium fuel that has been enriched to weapons-grade level. The US reiterated its acceptance of a civilian nuclear program, which Iran is allowed to pursue under its acceptance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. The Obama administration and its European allies also will call for a halt in the production of higher-level enrichment of uranium fuel, and the shipment of existing stockpiles of that fuel out of Iran, the newspaper said, citing US and European diplomats … Diplomats told the Times that they could not imagine any agreement that left Iran with a stockpile of fuel, enriched to 20 percent purity, that could be converted to the grade needed to make an atomic bomb in a matter of months … Defense Ministry Diplomatic-Security Bureau Head Amos Gilad Maj.-Gen. (res.) also responded to the Times article on Sunday morning, saying the most important part of the report is the US’s insistence that Iran not be allowed to acquire a nuclear bomb. ‘The US’s unequivocal commitment that it won’t allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon is the most important part’ of the Times report, Gilad told Army Radio”.

After both meetings, there was a press conference.

In Jerusalem with Netanyahu, BAN said “Settlements do not help the peace process… I told the prime minister that he should refrain from future construction”. [Just future construction? The goalposts keep getting moved...]

Netanyahu reportedly told BAN that the settlement issue must be discussed during negotiations, “it can’t be a precondition”… [So, the Palestinians need to negotiate about settlements? Somehow, this sounds different than just saying settlements are one of the final status issues in negotiations...]

According to the New York Times, “Mr. Netanyahu thanked Mr. Ban for his ‘good intentions’, but he said the settlement question should be dealt with as part of a final agreement. ‘It cannot be a precondition to enter into that agreement’, he said”. This is published here.

This NYTimes story added: “An Israeli official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue said Israel was ‘ready for mutual confidence-building measures in the framework of a peace process that is moving forward’ — in other words, as long as the measures came with guarantees that the Palestinians would stick with the talks. He would not specify what steps they might include. Another Israeli official said that in a closed meeting with Mr. Peres, Mr. Ban suggested that Israel, as the stronger party, should release Palestinian prisoners as one way of improving the atmosphere”…

In Ramallah with Abbas, BAN said “A viable Palestinian state is long overdue. I continue to believe a two-state solution is long overdue … The international community has been clear: all settlements are contrary to international law … [In the "exploratory" talks recently in Amman] the Palestinians have been forthcoming in producing proposals on territory + security, and I very much hope Israel will present their proposals. This is what I told Israeli leaders today”.

BAN also said, in answer to a question from the press, that “I fully share the Palestinians’ complaint that they have been under occupation for such a long time, suffering all these hardships without prospects of knowing when this will be over … We have wasted almost 20 years since Oslo … [But] negotiations is the best way to get results”.

Travelling with BAN was the former UN Special Envoy here, Terje Roed Larsen [who is still working on the Lebanon dossier]…

The long-serving Ambassador of the Observer Mission of Palestine, Riyad Mansour, was also present.

BAN added, in response to another question, that “On 23rd September I received the Palestinian application for UN membership, and I immediately conveyed it to the UN Security Council. I made it immediately clear that I fully support the aspiration of the Palestinian people to become a UN member within the framework of two states … it’s still in the hands of the UN Security Council”.

Abbas told BAN: “Mr. Secretary-General, I hope to be able to host you soon in an independent state”…

But, Abbas said, in response to a question from the press, that “We toured the whole world to get 9 votes in the UN Security Council, though I knew at the end that we faced the veto … Unfortunately, we did not achieve our goal of getting 9 votes … At some point we will review all our steps in the near future”.

He also said there was “a need to stop the campaign of arrests” and to free detained parliamentarians”…

Abbas, in his remarks, did not insult the Quartet … instead, he offered a light but rather indistinct compliment.

The Chief Palestinian negotiator Sa’eb Erekat was seated in the front row, during the press conference [next to Terje Roed Larsen], and PLO Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi was there as well.

“In the end”, Abbas said, I wish to assert that what we want is a two-state solution within the 1967 borders, and the need to end the Israeli presence on all our territory, including the Jordan Valley and East Jerusalem”.

[Last week, at the end of the 5th "exploratory meeting" in Amman in which Israeli + Palestinian negotiators sat together for the first time a long time, an Israeli envoy made sweepingly broad indications of Israel's territorial interests -- and said Israel wanted to keep a security presence along the Jordan River...]

Tomorrow, BAN is going to Gaza in the morning, and will address the Herzliya Conference at 8 PM, before flying back to New York after midnight.

[Earlier on this trip away from New York, the UNSG was in Ethiopia; Davos, Switzerland, and Amman...]

The IAEA report suggested that there was no way to understand parts of Iran’s nuclear research other than to believe there was an aim to study how a nuclear weapon might be developed.

The IAEA 35-member Board of Governors adopted the resolution — which expressed “deep and increasing concern about the unresolved issues regarding the Iranian nuclear program, including those which need to be clarified to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions” — on Friday 18 November.

The resolution also expressed the Board’s “continuing support for a diplomatic solution”. It called on Iran to implement an additional IAEA inspection protocol which is purely voluntary for other countries — Iran has been ordered to do so by a series of resolutions in the UN Security Council.

And the IAEA Board resolution also called on Iran “to engage seriously and without preconditions in talks aimed at restoring international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program, while respecting the legitimate right to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy consistent with the NPT”.

According to a report in the New York Times, “the global powers meeting in Vienna criticized Tehran on Friday over suspicions that it is building a nuclear weapon. The rebuke, however, fell far short of threatening further pressure or actions to curb Iran’s contentious uranium enrichment program”. This was attributed in part to objections from Russia and China. The NYTimes article can be read in full here.

The NYTimes report added that the Iranian representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, “accused the nuclear agency of endangering the lives of Iranian scientists by releasing their names in an annex to last week’s report about the suspicions of nuclear weapons work. ‘The release of the names of the Iranian nuclear scientists by the agency has made them targets for assassination by terrorist groups as well as the Israeli regime and the U.S. intelligence services’, he said in a letter to the body’s director general, Yukiya Amano. Parts of the letter were published by Iran’s state-financed Press TV satellite broadcaster, which noted that several Iranian nuclear scientists had been killed in episodes attributed by Iran to Israeli, British and American intelligence services. Mr. Soltanieh contended that disclosing the names of Iranian experts represented a violation of the agency’s rules and said Tehran reserved the right to seek damages from the agency for any harm to its personnel or property as a result of the report — a possible reference to Tehran’s frequently voiced fears of an Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities”….

In a separate, but possibly related, matter, the U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is due to meet Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Canada on the sidelines of a larger meeting.

Apparently, Ambassador Soltanieh said that as a result of today’s vote, Iran had decided not to attend an upcoming IAEA meeting on establishing a nuclear-weapons-free-zone in the Middle East.

The publication of the IAEA report [which was leaked to the press within minutes of its distribution to the Board of Governors] has also been criticized by Seyed Hossein Mousavian, whose remarks are reported in an interview published by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, here. The Bulletin describes Mousavian as “a lecturer and research scholar at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, is the highest-ranking member of Iran’s political elite living in the United States”. Here is an excerpt of the Q+A:

Q [Ali Vaez]:…Back in 2008, Iran addressed most of these allegations in a 117-page response to the IAEA. Wouldn’t publication of this response be a more constructive move than taking umbrage at the IAEA?

Mousavian: The IAEA has, unfortunately, broken the rules of the game. Iran does not want to commit the same mistake. The issues between the agency and member states should remain confidential. Iran respects the rules and does not disclose its communications with the agency. Yet, the content of the IAEA reports on Iran are leaked to the media ahead of their distribution among the agency’s member states. This is highly unprofessional and against the statute of the agency. Such behavior is highly damaging to the credibility of the IAEA, as an impartial international body. It also clearly demonstrates that the information is dictated to the agency from somewhere else in order to make the case for ratcheting up pressure on Iran. The publication of these allegations was a significant step backward.

…

[Mousavian continued:]

The recent developments constitute another chapter in the long tale of Western miscalculations about Iran. The West has constantly resorted to escalating pressure on Tehran, without pondering about the resulting backlash. After the 1979 revolution, Iran sought to shrink the nuclear program and had no intention to have indigenous uranium enrichment. Nevertheless, the Germans, the French, and the Americans refused to respect their contractual commitments, abandoned our unfinished nuclear projects, rebuffed our demands for compensation, and denied us nuclear fuel. Therefore, Iran had no other option than to take matters into its own hands and aim at self-sufficiency. This was in no way a unique venture. The West provided Saddam Hussein with chemical and biological weapons, which he used against Iranians with impunity. As the first victims of weapons of mass destruction since the Second World War, Iran felt compelled to develop chemical and biological deterrence capabilities. The same logic applies to Iran’s ballistic missile program, which was created to counter Iraq’s Western-supplied long-range missiles. Therefore, you can trace back the root of Iran’s current deterrence capabilities to the sense of solitude that Tehran experienced during the Iran-Iraq War.

…

Vaez: You were part of the team of Iranian negotiators that in 2003 reached a deal with the EU-3 (France, Britain and Germany) that reduced the tension between Iran and the West and brought about the implementation of the Additional Protocol (for enhanced IAEA safeguards) and suspension of uranium enrichment in Iran. Is a similar diplomatic breakthrough attainable at this juncture?

Mousavian: When the question of suspension came up in 2003, there were two schools of thought in Iran. One group advocated engagement with the West, while others were proponents of resistance. The majority was with the advocates of reaching a negotiated compromise with the West. Consequently, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei consented to a temporary suspension as a non-legally binding confidence-building measure. He was, however, suspicious of Western intentions and remained skeptical about the ability of European countries to fulfill their end of the bargain. Still, we went even beyond suspension and voluntarily signed and implemented the Additional Protocol and the subsidiary agreements, and provided the IAEA with unprecedented access to our nuclear facilities and even military sites. After two years of Tehran’s full cooperation and transparency efforts, the Europeans failed to deliver on their promises because of American obstructionism. As a result of this deadlock, the Supreme Leader decided to turn the table. The ruling apparatus prepared the country for crippling sanctions and even war, and then Iran suspended the implementation of the Additional Protocol, broke the IAEA seals, and restarted our uranium refinement activities. It is important to note that Iran resumed some activities — i.e. at the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility, during the presidency of [reformist] President Mohammad Khatami — and restarted other programs, i.e. uranium enrichment in Natanz, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration. Since then, there has been no confidence-building measure from the West, and thus Iran sees no reason to alter its policy.

Vaez: This blame game is a two-way street. Not only does the Iranian government refuse to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions, it employs an empty rhetoric to brag about its nuclear achievements. Why the bluster about building 10 new enrichment facilities, when they can’t even maintain the production rate of their current centrifuges?

Mousavian: I agree that it takes two to tango. But let us review the events of the last three months to better understand the posturing of both sides. First, Iran allowed an IAEA team led by deputy director general Herman Nackaerts to visit Iran’s heavy water facilities and centrifuge production and R&D centers. This initiative goes even beyond the Additional Protocol. During this visit, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoun Abbasi, personally apprised Nackaerts of Iran’s receptiveness to put the country’s nuclear program under ‘full IAEA supervision’ for five years, provided that sanctions against Iran are lifted. The second development was Ahmadinejad’s offer during his trip to New York to attend the annual UN General Assembly meeting. He signaled Iran’s readiness to immediately stop uranium enrichment to 20 percent level, if Iran is given fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor. This was an immensely important move to demonstrate that Iran is not seeking highly enriched uranium. Iran’s ambassador at the IAEA and the foreign minister reiterated the offer numerous times in the ensuing weeks. Finally, Iran’s third goodwill gesture was the release of two American hikers, accused of espionage, after two years imprisonment in Iran. It is essential to note that none of these initiatives could have seen the light of the day if the Supreme Leader had not given the green light for their implementation. Now, let’s analyze the reaction of the West to these overtures from Iran. The United States accused Iran of plotting to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in Washington, based on flimsy evidence. The European Union expanded its Iran sanctions list to include 29 officials accused of ‘human rights violations’. The US Congress proposed new bills that would impose more unilateral sanctions on Iran and prohibit US diplomats from communicating with their Iranian counterparts. And finally, the IAEA released its most damning report on the alleged military dimension of Iran’s nuclear activities amid international media’s hysteria. Given these dynamics, is it realistic to expect that Iranian decision makers should trust the Western countries and their intentions? In reality, the West is pushing Iran to close the door on nuclear diplomacy, in the fear that it is a guise for regime change. This path will, regrettably, lead to confrontation…

…

Mousavian: Despite all the disappointments, Iran has never closed the door to diplomacy. Even under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his controversial holocaust-denial narrative, Iran has offered several overtures to the West. President Ahmadinejad wrote official letters to Presidents Bush and Obama, but received no response. In 2007, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, signed a modality agreement with the IAEA’s [then-] director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, under which Iran clarified all the remaining issues, including the alleged studies on nuclear arms. Regardless of Iran’s level of cooperation and overtures, however, Tehran’s efforts have never been sufficient for Washington. I believe that there should be a two-pronged approach to diplomacy. Two packages should be prepared in parallel. The first package should be negotiated between Iran and the five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, or P5+1, to resolve the nuclear issue. The following essential criteria should be considered for the success of these negotiations: First, the end game should be clear from the beginning. For Iran, that optimal outcome is Western recognition of Iran’s right to uranium enrichment under the NPT. For the West, the outcome should be maximum transparency and cooperation from Iran, according to the NPT. If suspension of enrichment is the Western goal, the impasse will persist. Nearly 8,000 centrifuges are now spinning in Iran. It is unrealistic to expect the Iranians to close down their facilities and ask thousands of scientists, engineers, and technicians to sit idle. The West should come to terms with the fact that the horse of enrichment has left the barn. If non-diversion is the goal, diplomacy can succeed. The second package should be a comprehensive package, to be discussed between Tehran and Washington directly. The nuclear issue would never be resolved unless Iran and the United States start to simultaneously address their long list of grievances. Only then could a face-saving solution be within reach”…

The Wall Street Journal reported from the IAEA Board of Governor’s meeting in Vienna, additionally, that in direct response to the latest IAEA report “The Obama administration pressed Iran to account for a discrepancy of nearly 20 kilograms in its reporting to the United Nations’ nuclear agency on how much natural uranium metal it has in its stockpile … Natural uranium metal can specifically be utilized as a surrogate material to conduct simulated tests of nuclear detonations, according to U.S. officials. It can also be used to produce high-explosive weapons, such as armor-piercing rockets. The IAEA calculated 20 kilos more than Iran had reported … ‘This in many ways could prove the most direct link between Iran’s military activities and its stockpile of nuclear materials’, said an American official. Nuclear experts said the IAEA has differed with Iran before about the amounts of nuclear materials it possesses. It some cases, they said, Tehran has even overestimated the amount of enriched uranium it has produced. But the agency and Iran have in the past worked to resolve their differences. The IAEA’s report said the agency believes Iran has conducted some simulated tests of nuclear detonations. Natural uranium metals, these experts said, have many of the same properties as the highly enriched uranium used in a nuclear bomb, but without the fissile reaction”.

The WSJ story says that the IAEA “study concluded that Iran has worked to develop nuclear-tipped midrange missiles and bomb-triggering systems. It also cited the discrepancy between Iran’s reporting of its natural uranium metal stockpile and what IAEA inspectors have verified”.  This WSJ report can be read in full here.

The Jerusalem Post is reporting here that the U.S. will, however, unilaterally implement additional sanctions against Iran that will target the “petrochemical sector”.

A  Reuters “Exclusive” reports that “sources said Washington wanted to send a strong signal after the U.N. nuclear watchdog issued a November 8 report saying Iran appeared to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be secretly carrying out related research. The sources, who spoke on condition that they not be named, said the sanctions could be unveiled as early as Monday. They said the United States was looking to find a way to bar foreign companies from aiding Iran’s petrochemical industry with the threat of depriving them access to the U.S. market”.  This Reuters “Exclusive” is posted here.

The WSJ noted, however, that “The U.S. isn’t expected to directly sanction Iran’s central bank, as many on Capitol Hill have demanded”…

A CHANGE AT THE TOP

Yesterday, the IAEA Director-General, Yukiya Amano, told journalists that “It is clear that Iran has a case to answer … We have to alert the world before nuclear proliferation actually takes place”. This is reported by Reuters, here.

UPDATE: Seymour Hersh wrote a comment in The New Yorker, here, on 18 November that:

“I’ve been reporting on Iran and the bomb for The New Yorker for the past decade, with a focus on the repeatedly inability of the best and the brightest of the Joint Special Operations Command to find definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons production program in Iran. The goal of the high-risk American covert operations was to find something physical—a ‘smoking calutron’, as a knowledgeable official once told me—to show the world that Iran was working on warheads at an undisclosed site, to make the evidence public, and then to attack and destroy the site. But how definitive, or transformative, were the findings [in the new report] ? The IAEA said it had continued in recent years ‘to receive, collect and evaluate information relevant to possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program’ and, as a result, it has been able ‘to refine its analysis’. The net effect has been to create ‘more concern’. But Robert Kelley, a retired IAEA director and nuclear engineer who previously spent more than thirty years with the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapons program, told me that he could find very little new information in the IAEA report. He noted that hundreds of pages of material appears to come from a single source: a laptop computer, allegedly supplied to the IAEA by a Western intelligence agency, whose provenance could not be established. Those materials, and others, ‘were old news’, Kelley said, and known to many journalists. ‘I wonder why this same stuff is now considered “new information” by the same reporters’ … The report did note that its on-site camera inspection process of Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment facilities—mandated under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory—’continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material’. In other words, all of the low enriched uranium now known to be produced inside Iran is accounted for; if highly enriched uranium is being used for the manufacture of a bomb, it would have to have another, unknown source. The shift in tone at the IAEA seems linked to a change at the top. The IAEA’s report had extra weight because the Agency has had a reputation for years as a reliable arbiter on Iran. Mohammed ElBaradei, who retired as the IAEA’s Director General two years ago, was viewed internationally, although not always in Washington, as an honest broker—a view that lead to the awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. ElBaradei’s replacement is Yukiya Amano of Japan. Late last year, a classified U.S. Embassy cable from Vienna, the site of the I.A.E.A. headquarters, described Amano as being ‘ready for prime time’. According to the cable, which was obtained by WikiLeaks, in a meeting in September, 2009, with Glyn Davies, the American permanent representative to the IAEA, said, ‘Amano reminded Ambassador on several occasions that he would need to make concessions to the G-77 [the group of developing countries], which correctly required him to be fair-minded and independent, but that he but that he was solidly in the U.S. court on every strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program’. The cable added that Amano’s ‘willingness to speak candidly with U.S. interlocutors on his strategy … bodes well for our future relationship’. It is possible, of course, that Iran has simply circumvented the reconnaissance efforts of America and the IAEA, perhaps even building Dick Cheney’s nightmare: a hidden underground nuclear-weapons fabrication facility. Iran’s track record with the IAEA has been far from good: its leadership began construction of its initial uranium facilities in the nineteen-eighties without informing the Agency, in violation of the nonproliferation treaty. Over the next decade and a half, under prodding from ElBaradei and the West, the Iranians began acknowledging their deceit and opened their enrichment facilities, and their records, to IAEA inspectors. The new report, therefore, leaves us where we’ve been since 2002, when George Bush declared Iran to be a member of the Axis of Evil—with lots of belligerent talk but no definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons program”.

THE IAEA RESOLUTION WAS MILD — BUT THE PRESSURE ON IRAN WILL RACHET UP

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement from Washington after the IAEA vote in Vienna that:

“The world has sent a clear and unified message to Tehran that it is deeply troubled by the evidence revealed in last week’s report by Director General Amano. This report supplied the clearest confirmation of what the United States has long believed – that, despite its constant denials, Iran’s government has pursued technologies and equipment that could only be applied to a nuclear weapons program. Iran has said that it seeks nuclear power solely for peaceful purposes. However, the Director General’s report and today’s action by the IAEA Board of Governors underscore that the international community does not find Iran’s claims credible. The P5+1 countries have affirmed Iran’s right to a peaceful nuclear program but make clear that with that right comes responsibilities – responsibilities Iran has yet to fulfill. The P5+1 remains ready to engage with Iran if Iran is genuinely prepared to engage in serious negotiations, where Iran can choose to rebuild international confidence in the nature of its nuclear program”.

Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly has passed a resolution condemning an alleged plot to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington. The UNGA resolution doesn’t specifically name Iran, but the U.S. accused Iran of being behind the plot — an accusation which has met considerable scepticism. Still, the resolution — which was co-sponsored by Saudi Arabia + others — called on Iran “to comply with all of its obligations under international law”.

The U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, told the UNGA that:

“last month the United States disrupted a terrorist plot to assassinate the ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States. This plot did more than just target the ambassador of a single country. It struck at one of the most sacred principles governing relations among states: the safety and protection of diplomats. Every single member of the international community has an interest in forcefully condemning such heinous acts. Given the nature of this plot, it cannot be seen as just a simple criminal act. Attacks on internationally protected persons have long been understood as emblematic acts of international terrorism. The United States therefore strongly supports and cosponsors Saudi Arabia’s draft resolution to deplore this plot. This resolution will send the message that attacks on internationally protected persons are unacceptable. While this resolution expresses our collective abhorrence at the known details of the plot, it also restates and reinforces principles that are essential to the functioning of diplomacy. It is a measured and appropriate response. A fair and transparent judicial process is now underway in the United States to prosecute one person arrested in connection with this plot. If adopted, this resolution will directly support that process by promoting international cooperation to bring to justice all those who are responsible. In the meantime, we cannot let this plot go unanswered. To do so would suggest that acts like these are within the bounds of acceptable behavior to resolve international conflicts“.

Ambassador Rice’s remarks are posted here. She did not mention Iran by name…

U.S. Politician “Mitt Romney: IF WE REELECT BARACK OBAMA, IRAN WILL HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON”

But, in Washington after the UNGA vote, the White House Press Secretary said “The widespread support for this resolution, which was co-sponsored by UN members from all regions of the world, sends a strong message to the Iranian government that the international community will not tolerate the targeting of diplomats. We will continue to work closely with our allies and partners around the world to ensure that Iran understands that such outrageous acts only deepen Iran’s isolation”. This statement is posted here.

UPDATE: In his comment in The New Yorker on 18 November, Seymour Hersh reported on a public American political debate in which “Iran figured prominently.  Hersh wrote that: Mitt Romney called the state of Iran’s nuclear program Obama’s ‘greatest failing, from a foreign-policy standpoint’ and added, ‘Look, one thing you can know … and that is if we reëlect Barack Obama Iran will have a nuclear weapon’.”

Whatever that means…[it is ambiguous, no?]

Meanwhile, Matthew Lee of Inner City Press [@innercitypress] has Tweeted that “At #UN As US @AmbassadorRice Lauds #Saudi Plot GA Vote, Not Only the Veto but Abstentions by #IBSA [India, Brazil, South Africa] Blocked #UNSC Action”

He has written a blog post about this, published here, in which he argues that “While 106 countries voted in favor, 40 abstained, including Security Council members India, Brazil and South Africa, and the nine voting no connoted a veto in the Security Council. Considering these votes of major nations, the vote was not as ‘overwhelming’ as the resolution’s proponents made out. It seems to explain why they went to the General Assembly and not the Security Council”.

What does it say?

It can be read in full here: here.

It starts right out with this statement, rebuffing Iran’s efforts to negotiate or wheedle an arrangement [it's been called "buying time"] to get a better deal, rather than a new [this would be the 7th] round of sanctions either through the UN Security Council, or enacted unilaterally by those states who feel the strongest about this matter:
“The Security Council has affirmed that the steps required by the Board of Governors in its resolutions are binding on Iran. The relevant provisions of the aforementioned Security Council resolutions were adopted under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, and are mandatory, in accordance with the terms of those resolutions”.

Here’s the immediate diplomatic deal — all of this is spelled right up front in the IAEA report”
“In a letter dated 26 May 2011, H.E. Dr Fereydoun Abbasi, Vice President of Iran and Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), informed the Director General that Iran would be prepared to receive relevant questions from the Agency on its nuclear activities after a declaration by the Agency that the work plan (INFCIRC/711) had been fully implemented and that the Agency would thereafter implement safeguards in Iran in a routine manner. In his reply of 3 June 2011, the Director General
informed Dr Abbasi that the Agency was neither in a position to make such a declaration, nor to conduct safeguards in Iran in a routine manner, in light of concerns about the existence in Iran of possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. On 19 September 2011, the Director General met Dr Abbasi in Vienna, and discussed issues related to the implementation of Iran’s Safeguards Agreement and other relevant obligations. In a letter dated 30 September 2011, the Agency reiterated its invitation to Iran to reengage with the Agency on the outstanding issues related to possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme and the actions required of Iran to resolve those issues. In a letter dated 30 October 2011, Dr Abbasi referred to his previous discussions with the Director General and expressed the will of Iran ‘to remove ambiguities, if any‘, suggesting that the Deputy Director General for Safeguards (DDG-SG), should visit Iran for discussions. In his reply, dated 2 November 2011, the Director General indicated his preparedness to send the DDG-SG to ‘discuss the issues identified’ in his forthcoming report to the Board“…

The IAEA has expressed somewhat more concern than before — but they’re not hysterical with worry. They gave greater details about some of the allegations contained in earlier IAEA reports on Iran’s nuclear program up to 2003 [when the U.S. invaded neighboring Iraq], at which point Iran was believed to have largely stopped it. But, Iran has apparently maintained some kind of program to continue to monitor the results of its earlier research.

The report says “Since 2002, the Agency has become increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile, about which the Agency has regularly received new information”.

It also says that “While the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs [locations outside facilities where nuclear material is customarily used + a footnote tells us that "All of the LOFs are situated within hospitals".] declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement, as Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation, including by not implementing its Additional Protocol, the Agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities. The Agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. After assessing carefully and critically the extensive information available to it, the Agency finds the information to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The information also indicates that prior to the end of 2003, these activities took place under a structured programme, and that some activities may still be ongoing. Given the concerns identified above, Iran is requested to engage substantively with the Agency
without delay for the purpose of providing clarifications regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme as identified in the Annex to this report.

__________________________________________________________________________________

The IAEA report complains that “The Agency is still awaiting a substantive response from Iran to Agency requests for further
information in relation to announcements made by Iran concerning the construction of ten new uranium enrichment facilities, the sites for five of which, according to Iran, have been decided, and the construction of one of which was to have begun by the end of the last Iranian year (20 March 2011) or the start of this Iranian year. In August 2011, Dr Abbasi was reported as having said that Iran did not need to build new enrichment facilities during the next two years.25 Iran has not provided information, as requested by the Agency in its letter of 18 August 2010, in connection with its announcement on 7 February 2010 that it possessed laser enrichment technology”.

It also complains that “Contrary to the relevant resolutions of the Board of Governors and the Security Council, Iran has not
suspended work on all heavy water related projects, including the construction of the heavy water moderated research reactor, the Iran Nuclear Research Reactor (IR-40 Reactor), which is subject to Agency safeguards”.

[A footnote tell us that: "The United Nations Security Council has adopted the following resolutions on Iran: 1696 (2006); 1737 (2006); 1747 (2007); 1803 (2008); 1835 (2008); and 1929 (2010)".]

__________________________________________________________________________________

An important annex discusses “Possible Military Dimensions to Iran’s Nuclear Program” … which we will look at in another post.

The Palestinians say that there has to be a complete stop to Israeli settlement activities on the ground, first. They now also say they want the negotiations conducted within an international framework of legitimacy. And, they have made it clear that they want to start where Netanyahu’s predecessor, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, left off with them in September 2008, shortly before he was required to resign during a corruption investigation.

The Quartet spent five intensive days in New York trying to draft a statement they could all agree upon and that would also meet Palestinian requirements, in an effort to avert the Palestinian “UN bid”. After yesterday’s speeches by Abbas and by Netanyahu, the Quartet issued the following statement, which proposes a resumption of negotiations within the month, and agreement by the end of 2012:

“The Quartet takes note of the application submitted by President Abbas on 23rd September 2011 which is now before the Security Council.

The Quartet reaffirmed its statement of 20th May 2011, including its strong support for the vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace outlined by United States President Barack Obama. [[note - This refers, therefore, only to Obama's speech at the U.S. State Department on 19 May, in which he called for negotiations to resume first on borders, which Obama said should be the 1967 borders, and security. It deliberately omits reference to Obama's speech to AIPAC on 21 May, in which he caves in to Israeli pressure and for the first time endorses the controversial language in the 2004 letter of George Bush to Israel's then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, which recognized existing demographic realities on the ground - meaning the Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank...]]

The Quartet recalled its previous statements, and affirmed its determination to actively and vigorously seek a comprehensive resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, on the basis of UN Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, 1397, 1515, 1850, the Madrid principles including land for peace, the Roadmap, and the agreements previously reached between the parties.

The Quartet reiterated its commitment to a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East and to seek a comprehensive resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and reaffirms the importance of the Arab Peace Initiative.

The Quartet reiterated its urgent appeal to the parties to overcome the current obstacles and resume direct bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations without delay or preconditions. But it accepts that meeting, in itself, will not reestablish the trust necessary for such a negotiation to succeed. It therefore proposes the following steps:

1. Within a month there will be a preparatory meeting between the parties to agree an agenda and method of proceeding in the negotiation.

2. At that meeting there will be a commitment by both sides that the objective of any negotiation is to reach an agreement within a timeframe agreed to by the parties but not longer than the end of 2012. The Quartet expects the parties to come forward with comprehensive proposals within three months on territory and security, and to have made substantial progress within six months. To that end, the Quartet will convene an international conference in Moscow, in consultation with the parties, at the appropriate time.

3. There will be a Donors Conference at which the international community will give full and sustained support to the Palestinian Authority state-building actions developed by Prime Minister Fayyad under the leadership of President Abbas.

4. The Quartet recognizes the achievements of the Palestinian Authority in preparing institutions for statehood as evidenced in reports to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, and stresses the need to preserve and build on them. In this regard, the members of the Quartet will consult to identify additional steps they can actively support towards Palestinian statehood individually and together, to secure in accordance with existing procedures significantly greater independence and sovereignty for the Palestinian Authority over its affairs.

5. The Quartet calls upon the parties to refrain from provocative actions if negotiations are to be effective. The Quartet reiterated the obligations of both parties under the Roadmap.

6. The Quartet committed to remain actively involved and to encourage and review progress. The Quartet agreed to meet regularly and to task the envoys and the Quartet Representative to intensify their cooperation, including by meeting prior to the parties’ preparatory meeting, and to formulate recommendations for Quartet action”.

This statement is posted here.

At the same time, tens of thousands of Palestinians came together in central squares of major West Bank cities to watch the speech, despite an unexpected September rain and cool weather. They were electrified, transported, that Mahmoud Abbas actually went through with what he said he would do: apply to the UN Security Council to ask for full UN membership for the state of Palestine — because, as Mahmoud Abbas argued, it is their right, and they deserve it.

[In 1988, after the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] read a Declaration of Independence at a meeting of the PLO’s Palestine National Council in Algiers in November 1988. In the aftermath, the UN General Assembly took note of the Declaration, and upgraded the PLO from observer national liberation movement to observer organization. At the time, in 1988, the PLO was going to ask for a seat for Palestine in the UN General Assembly hall — even if they would have to leave it symbolically vacant. But, they backed down, in the face of certain international opposition.

The Palestinian leadership could have have asked for UN membership decades ago. But, by waiting, this “UN bid” has been made by the PLO’s Provisional Government, which is the PLO Executive Committee — not by a government in exile, which it would have been in 1988…

Contrary to two earlier indications, Abbas met the UN Secretary-General BAN Ki-Moon just before delivering his speech, and handed over the official Palestinian application — which Abbas signed as President of the State of Palestine, and Chairman of the PLO.

A few hours later, the Washington Post’s UN correspondent Colum Lynch posted the official PLO letter, plus a transmittal letter by UNSG Ban, and a distribution note from the current President [Lebanon] of the UN Security Council for the month of September, here.

The full text of Abbas’s speech to the UNGA can be found here, or here.

Here are some excerpts:

“We aspire for and seek a greater and more effective role for the United Nations in working to achieve a just and comprehensive peace in our region that ensures the inalienable, legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people as defined by the resolutions of international legitimacy of the United Nations…

UPDATE: Though some were not happy, it is fair to say that even some of those Palestinians who have been most critical of the Palestinian Authority and its leadership were pleased. Palestinian activist Mazin Qumsiyeh [Popular Resistance, based in Bethlehem] wrote on his blog, here:

“Mahmoud Abbas gave a brilliant speech at the United Nations, getting rounds of applause from most of the representatives. I think it demonstrated clearly and unambiguously that the Palestinian leadership has been “unreasonably reasonable” and has instead seen the hopes of peace and of millions of Palestinians suffering for 63 years dashed on the rock of Israeli expansionist, colonial, and apartheid policies. He explained that Israel has been taking one unilateral action after another each resulting in more pain and suffering for our people. Going to the UN, he explained is putting things back where the problems started (he did not use the last two words but I do). He said a word that I think he should defend strongly that
no person or country with an iota of logic or conscience should reject the Palestinian state membership in the UN or its formation in the 22% of historic Palestine that is the West Bank and Gaza. I think he took a courageous step and gave a good performance”.

Israeli activist Uri Avnery [Gush Shalom, journalist and former Knesset member] issued a statement saying: ” ‘Mahmud Abbas has taken the excuses out of Netnayhau’s hands. The State of Palestine, under his leadership, is fully ready to make peace with the State of Israel on the basis of the 1967 borders, to resume negotiations if no settlement facts are created on the land subject to negotiations – but the Palestinians are not ready to continue to live under occupation … The State of Palestine will not arise tomorrow, and a long and hard road awaits all of us until this state becomes a reality and takes its rightful place as the Palestinians’ national state and Israel’s partner for peace. Still, today will be counted among the key historical dates in the history of our region. Netanyahu’s answering speech was nothing but a cheap compilation of propaganda, with rejection of the Palestinian offer and intransigent refusal to end the occupation packed in “security” rhetoric and clichés. The “Palestinian state” envisioned in Netahyhau’s speech would be “demilitarized” but have a heavy Israeli military presence in its territory. In practice, there is reason to doubt Netanyahu intends to let any kind of Palestinian state come into being or withdraw from any territory, and his speech in practice left nothing to negotiate about. By a blatant interference in American internal politics, Netanyahu has bent the US to his will. He forced the President of the United States to deliver at the UN a Zionist and cynical speech, contradicting and nullifying Obama’s own previous positions, and assured a US veto and outright opposition to Palestinian aspirations. But it was a pyrrhic victory for Netanyahu – he has been shown the entire world that the United States is not suitable to serve as an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians … If and when negotiations resume between Israel and the Palestinians, it will be necessary to find a mediator or mediators more appropriate and fair – which confirms the Palestinians in their decision to move the focus of diplomatic activity from the White House to the UN Headquarters”.

The Israel Project called the speech hate-filled. Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman said it was provocation. And hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Palestinians felt that it was an accurate, concise, restrained description of their suffering.

The Abbas speech continued:

the Israeli government refuses to commit to terms of reference for the negotiations that are based on international law and United Nations resolutions, and…frantically continues to intensify building of settlements on the territory of the State of Palestine. Settlement activities embody the core of the policy of colonial military occupation of the land of the Palestinian people and all of the brutality of aggression and racial discrimination against our people that this policy entails. This policy, which constitutes a breach of international humanitarian law and United Nations resolutions, is the primary cause for the failure of the peace process, the collapse of dozens of opportunities, and the burial of the great hopes that arose from the signing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993 between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel to achieve a just peace that would begin a new era for our region.
…
The occupation is racing against time to redraw the borders on our land according to what it wants and to impose a fait accompli on the ground that changes the realities and that is undermining the realistic potential for the existence of the State of Palestine.
…
This policy will destroy the chances of achieving a two-State solution upon which there is an international consensus, and here I caution aloud: This settlement policy threatens to also undermine the structure of the Palestinian National Authority and even its existence.

In addition, we now face the imposition new conditions not previously raised, conditions that will transform the raging conflict in our inflamed region into a religious conflict and a threat to the future of a million and a half Christian and Muslim Palestinians, citizens of Israel, a matter which we reject and which is impossible for us to accept being dragged into.

All of these actions taken by Israel in our country are unilateral actions and are not based on any earlier agreements. Indeed, what we witness is a selective application of the agreements aimed at perpetuating the occupation. Israel reoccupied the cities of the West Bank by a unilateral action, and reestablished the civil and military occupation by a unilateral action, and it is the one that determines whether or not a Palestinian citizen has the right to reside in any part of the Palestinian Territory. And it is confiscating our land and our water and obstructing our movement as well as the movement of goods. And it is the one obstructing our whole destiny. All of this is unilateral.
…
In 1988, President Arafat again addressed the General Assembly, which convened in Geneva to hear him, where he submitted the Palestinian peace program adopted by the Palestine National Council at its session held that year in Algeria.

When we adopted this program, we were taking a painful and very difficult step for all of us, especially those, including myself, who were forced to leave their homes and their towns and villages, carrying only some of our belongings and our grief and our memories and the keys of our homes to the camps of exile and the Diaspora in the 1948 Al-Nakba, one of the worst operations of uprooting, destruction and removal of a vibrant and cohesive society that had been contributing in a pioneering and leading way in the cultural, educational and economic renaissance of the Arab Middle East.

Yet, because we believe in peace and because of our conviction in international legitimacy, and because we had the courage to make difficult decisions for our people, and in the absence of absolute justice, we decided to adopt the path of relative justice – justice that is possible and could correct part of the grave historical injustice committed against our people. Thus, we agreed to establish the State of Palestine on only 22% of the territory of historical Palestine – on all the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967.
…
I confirm, on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, which will remain so until the end of the conflict in all its aspects and until the resolution of all final status issues, the following:

1. The goal of the Palestinian people is the realization of their inalienable national rights in their independent State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all the land of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in the June 1967 war, in conformity with the resolutions of international legitimacy and with the achievement of a just and agreed upon solution to the Palestine refugee issue in accordance with resolution 194, as stipulated in the Arab Peace Initiative which presented the consensus Arab vision to resolve the core the Arab-Israeli conflict and to achieve a just and comprehensive peace. To this we adhere and this is what we are working to achieve. Achieving this desired peace also requires the release of political prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons without delay.

2. The PLO and the Palestinian people adhere to the renouncement of violence and rejection and condemning of terrorism in all its forms, especially State terrorism, and adhere to all agreements signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel.

3. We adhere to the option of negotiating a lasting solution to the conflict in accordance with resolutions of international legitimacy. Here, I declare that the Palestine Liberation Organization is ready to return immediately to the negotiating table on the basis of the adopted terms of reference based on international legitimacy and a complete cessation of settlement activities.

4. Our people will continue their popular peaceful resistance to the Israeli occupation and its settlement and apartheid policies and its construction of the racist annexation Wall, and they receive support for their resistance, which is consistent with international humanitarian law and international conventions and has the support of peace activists from Israel and around the world, reflecting an impressive, inspiring and courageous example of the strength of this defenseless people, armed only with their dreams, courage, hope and slogans in the face of bullets, tanks, tear gas and bulldozers.

5. When we bring our plight and our case to this international podium, it is a confirmation of our reliance on the political and diplomatic option and is a confirmation that we do not undertake unilateral steps. Our efforts are not aimed at isolating Israel or de-legitimizing it; rather we want to gain legitimacy for the cause of the people of Palestine. We only aim to de-legitimize the settlement activities and the occupation and apartheid and the logic of ruthless force, and we believe that all the countries of the world stand with us in this regard.

I am here to say on behalf of the Palestinian people and the Palestine Liberation Organization: We extend our hands to the Israeli government and the Israeli people for peace-making. I say to them: Let us urgently build together a future for our children where they can enjoy freedom, security and prosperity. Let us build the bridges of dialogue instead of checkpoints and walls of separation, and build cooperative relations based on parity and equity between two neighboring States – Palestine and Israel – instead of policies of occupation, settlement, war and eliminating the other.
…
It is no longer possible to redress the issue of the blockage of the horizon of the peace talks with the same means and methods that have been repeatedly tried and proven unsuccessful over the past years. The crisis is far too deep to be neglected, and what is more dangerous are attempts to simply circumvent it or postpone its explosion.

It is neither possible, nor practical, nor acceptable to return to conducting business as usual, as if everything is fine. It is futile to go into negotiations without clear parameters and in the absence of credibility and a specific timetable. Negotiations will be meaningless as long as the occupation army on the ground continues to entrench its occupation, instead of rolling it back, and continues to change the demography of our country in order to create a new basis on which to alter the borders.
…
It is a moment of truth and my people are waiting to hear the answer of the world. Will it allow Israel to continue its occupation, the only occupation in the world? Will it allow Israel to remain a State above the law and accountability? Will it allow Israel to continue rejecting the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice and the positions of the overwhelming majority of countries in the world?
…
I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the birthplace of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people in the homeland and in the the Diaspora, to say, after 63 years of suffering of the ongoing Nakba: Enough. It is time for the Palestinian people to gain their freedom and independence.

The time has come to end the suffering and the plight of millions of Palestine refugees in the homeland and the Diaspora, to end their displacement and to realize their rights, some of them forced to take refuge more than once in different places of the world.

At a time when the Arab peoples affirm their quest for democracy – the Arab Spring – the time is now for the Palestinian Spring, the time for independence.

The time has come for our men, women and children to live normal lives, for them to be able to sleep without waiting for the worst that the next day will bring; for mothers to be assured that their children will return home without fear of suffering killing, arrest or humiliation; for students to be able to go to their schools and universities without checkpoints obstructing them. The time has come for sick people to be able to reach hospitals normally, and for our farmers to be able to take care of their good land without fear of the occupation seizing the land and its water, which the wall prevents access to, or fear of the settlers, for whom settlements are being built on our land and who are uprooting and burning the olive trees that have existed for hundreds of years. The time has come for the thousands of prisoners to be released from the prisons to return to their families and their children to become a part of building their homeland, for the freedom of which they have sacrificed.

My people desire to exercise their right to enjoy a normal life like the rest of humanity. They believe what the great poet Mahmoud Darwish said: Standing here, staying here, permanent here, eternal here, and we have one goal, one, one: to be.

We profoundly appreciate and value the positions of all States that have supported our struggle and our rights and recognized the State of Palestine following the Declaration of Independence in 1988, as well as the countries that have recently recognized the State of Palestine and those that have upgraded the level of Palestine’s representation in their capitals. I also salute the Secretary-General, who said a few days ago that the Palestinian State should have been established years ago.

Be assured that this support for our people is more valuable to them than you can imagine, for it makes them feel that someone is listening to their narrative and that their tragedy and the horrors of Al-Nakba and the occupation, from which they have so suffered, are not being ignored. And, it reinforces their hope that stems from the belief that justice is possible in this in this world. The loss of hope is the most ferocious enemy of peace and despair is the strongest ally of extremism.

I say: The time has come for my courageous and proud people, after decades of displacement and colonial occupation and ceaseless suffering, to live like other peoples of the earth, free in a sovereign and independent homeland”…

Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu addressed the same UNGA session, within the hour. The full text of his speech can be found here.

Here are some excerpts from the Netanyahu speech:

“We withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and from every square inch of Gaza in 2005. That didn’t calm the Islamic storm, the militant Islamic storm that threatens us. It only brought the storm closer and make it stronger. Hezbollah and Hamas fired thousands of rockets against our cities from the very territories we vacated. See, when Israel left Lebanon and Gaza, the moderates didn’t defeat the radicals, the moderates were devoured by the radicals. And I regret to say that international troops like UNIFIL in Lebanon and UBAM (ph) [sic - this should be EUBAM, the European Union Border Assistance Mission, which was not a peacekeeping mission, but a bunch of customs inspectors who were supposed to help train the Gaza border officials] in Gaza didn’t stop the radicals from attacking Israel.

We left Gaza hoping for peace. We didn’t freeze the settlements in Gaza, we uprooted them. We did exactly what the theory says: Get out, go back to the 1967 borders, dismantle the settlements.

And I don’t think people remember how far we went to achieve this. We uprooted thousands of people from their homes. We pulled children out of — out of their schools and their kindergartens. We bulldozed synagogues. We even — we even moved loved ones from their graves. And then, having done all that, we gave the keys of Gaza to President Abbas.

Now the theory says it should all work out, and President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority now could build a peaceful state in Gaza. You can remember that the entire world applauded. They applauded our withdrawal as an act of great statesmanship. It was a bold act of peace.

But ladies and gentlemen, we didn’t get peace. We got war. We got Iran, which through its proxy Hamas promptly kicked out the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority collapsed in a day — in one day.

President Abbas just said on this podium that the Palestinians are armed only with their hopes and dreams. Yeah, hopes, dreams and 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran, not to mention the river of lethal weapons now flowing into Gaza from the Sinai, from Libya, and from elsewhere.

Thousands of missiles have already rained down on our cities. So you might understand that, given all this, Israelis rightly ask: What’s to prevent this from happening again in the West Bank?
…
Israelis remember the bitter lessons of Gaza. Many of Israel’s critics ignore them. They irresponsibly advise Israel to go down this same perilous path again. Your read what these people say and it’s as if nothing happened — just repeating the same advice, the same formulas as though none of this happened.

And these critics continue to press Israel to make far-reaching concessions without first assuring Israel’s security. They praise those who unwittingly feed the insatiable crocodile of militant Islam as bold statesmen. They cast as enemies of peace those of us who insist that we must first erect a sturdy barrier to keep the crocodile out, or at the very least jam an iron bar between its gaping jaws.

So in the face of the labels and the libels, Israel must heed better advice. Better a bad press than a good eulogy, and better still would be a fair press whose sense of history extends beyond breakfast, and which recognizes Israel’s legitimate security concerns.

I believe that in serious peace negotiations, these needs and concerns can be properly addressed, but they will not be addressed without negotiations. And the needs are many, because Israel is such a tiny country. Without Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, Israel is all of 9 miles wide.

I want to put it for you in perspective, because you’re all in the city. That’s about two-thirds the length of Manhattan. It’s the distance between Battery Park and Columbia University. And don’t forget that the people who live in Brooklyn and New Jersey are considerably nicer than some of Israel’s neighbors.

So how do you — how do you protect such a tiny country, surrounded by people sworn to its destruction and armed to the teeth by Iran? Obviously you can’t defend it from within that narrow space alone. Israel needs greater strategic depth, and that’s exactly why Security Council Resolution 242 didn’t require Israel to leave all the territories it captured in the Six-Day War. It talked about withdrawal from territories, to secure and defensible boundaries. And to defend itself, Israel must therefore maintain a long-term Israeli military presence in critical strategic areas in the West Bank.
…
All these potential cracks in Israel’s security have to be sealed in a peace agreement before a Palestinian state is declared, not afterwards, because if you leave it afterwards, they won’t be sealed. And these problems will explode in our face and explode the peace.

The Palestinians should first make peace with Israel and then get their state. But I also want to tell you this. After such a peace agreement is signed, Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as a new member of the United Nations. We will be the first. (Applause.)

And there’s one more thing. Hamas has been violating international law by holding our soldier Gilad Shalit captive for five years.
…
Ladies and gentlemen, last year in Israel in Bar-Ilan University, this year in the Knesset and in the U.S. Congress, I laid out my vision for peace in which a demilitarized Palestinian state recognizes the Jewish state. Yes, the Jewish state. After all, this is the body that recognized the Jewish state 64 years ago. Now, don’t you think it’s about time that Palestinians did the same?

The Jewish state of Israel will always protect the rights of all its minorities, including the more than 1 million Arab citizens of Israel. I wish I could say the same thing about a future Palestinian state, for as Palestinian officials made clear the other day — in fact, I think they made it right here in New York — they said the Palestinian state won’t allow any Jews in it. They’ll be Jew-free — Judenrein. That’s ethnic cleansing. There are laws today in Ramallah that make the selling of land to Jews punishable by death. That’s racism. And you know which laws this evokes.

Israel has no intention whatsoever to change the democratic character of our state. We just don’t want the Palestinians to try to change the Jewish character of our state. (Applause.) We want to give up — we want them to give up the fantasy of flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians.

President Abbas just stood here, and he said that the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the settlements. Well, that’s odd. Our conflict has been raging for — was raging for nearly half a century before there was a single Israeli settlement in the West Bank. So if what President Abbas is saying was true, then the — I guess that the settlements he’s talking about are Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa, Be’er Sheva. Maybe that’s what he meant the other day when he said that Israel has been occupying Palestinian land for 63 years. He didn’t say from 1967; he said from 1948. I hope somebody will bother to ask him this question because it illustrates a simple truth: The core of the conflict is not the settlements. The settlements are a result of the conflict. (Applause.)

The settlements have to be — it’s an issue that has to be addressed and resolved in the course of negotiations. But the core of the conflict has always been and unfortunately remains the refusal of the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish state in any border.

I think it’s time that the Palestinian leadership recognizes what every serious international leader has recognized, from Lord Balfour and Lloyd George in 1917, to President Truman in 1948, to President Obama just two days ago right here: Israel is the Jewish state. (Applause.) President Abbas, stop walking around this issue. Recognize the Jewish state, and make peace with us. In such a genuine peace, Israel is prepared to make painful compromises. We believe that the Palestinians should be neither the citizens of Israel nor its subjects. They should live in a free state of their own. But they should be ready, like us, for compromise. And we will know that they’re ready for compromise and for peace when they start taking Israel’s security requirements seriously and when they stop denying our historical connection to our ancient homeland.

I often hear them accuse Israel of Judaizing Jerusalem. That’s like accusing America of Americanizing Washington, or the British of Anglicizing London. You know why we’re called “Jews”? Because we come from Judea”…

By then, back-stage talks between Israeli and Palestinian “academics” and “individuals” over dinners in idyllic settings in northern Europe had reached the stage that the Oslo process was ready to go public, and the Declaration of Principles was signed on the White House lawn in a live event in September 1993.

Now, almost four years after the direct American supervision over direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations was launched at the Annapolis Conference, Palestinian negotiators have brought the file back to the UN, saying they want the international community to take a stand, and they want to exercise their right to ask for full UN membership.

As Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said to reporters on the flight to New York, “all hell has broken loose”.

A day before his big speech — which will be broadcast live on screens in centers of major West Bank cities, particularly Ramallah and Nablus — Abbas is reported in the New York Times [see our earlier post] to have said that he is not happy with either the Americans or the Arabs: “I am fed up with all these people + I don’t know what to do when I return back”.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu — who is on tape**,here, during a visit in 2001 to the large West Bank settlement of Ofra, between Ramallah and Nablus, as saying he deceived the U.S. and will destroy the Oslo Accords and prevent a solution — was for a while not even going to go to the UN, in order to deny credibility to the Palestinian “UN bid”. But, it assumed such proportions that he had to go.

Despite an offer, Netanyahu + Abbas have not met in New York. But, that is not a big deal.

For, Netanyahu has a strategy. He and his staff briefed Israeli journalists on it earlier this week. The Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon reported it in the Jerusalem Post: “Netanyahu’s strategy is to explain. Explain, explain, explain. He is a man of words. He loves to read, and to speak – some less charitable would say he loves to lecture. And he believes in the power of words, of oratory, of rhetoric … [H]e is carrying a speech to explain to the world what he feels much of it fails to see: that the Middle East has changed; changed radically, and changed fundamentally. At Sunday’s cabinet meeting Netanyahu explained why he decided, after weeks of deliberation, to go to the UN himself and combat the Palestinian Authority’s statehood recognition move. ‘My UN trip will have a double goal’, he said. ‘The first goal is to ensure that this move to bypass negotiations does not succeed and is stopped in the Security Council’. The second goal, he said, is to present the truth about ‘our desire for peace’ and Israel’s historic rights to the country that go back ‘only 4,000 years’. And then he cut to the chase: ‘I will also speak about our intention to achieve peace with our neighbors while ensuring our security. If this was clear and necessary in the past, then today it is even more important. Especially now, when the Middle East is undergoing a great upheaval, from Tunisia to Yemen, from Libya to Egypt, Syria and throughout the region; when we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, or how things will turn out’.” These remarks, which echo remarks made in recent months by a number of other Israeli military and security officials, are published in the JPost here.

Netanyahu said he was going to the UN in NY to speak the truth. Apparently, most of it has to deal with Israel’s security, and the requirement to maintain superiority and control to maintain Israel’s security.

Indications are, he will speak about the Jordan Valley.

When Israel began to build its Wall, almost a decade ago, it wanted to build it straight down the Jordan Valley. The U.S. Administration at that time [George W. Bush] quietly ruled that out.

Netanyahu wants to revisit the matter.

Toward the end of his article, the JPost’s Keinon wrote that “Last September, during those few days when Netanyahu and Abbas did speak for a few hours, the Prime Minister told Abbas that Israel would need a military presence along the Jordan River for a long period of time. When Abbas asked Netanyahu why, the prime minister replied that one never knows what could happen, and that a presence on the Jordan River – to protect against any untoward developments from the east – was a necessity. And that was before the fall of Hosni Mubarak, the chaos in Syria, the uncertainty in Jordan, and the rift with Turkey. How much truer is it now, he will argue, how much more caution is needed now, than in the past, because who really knows what will develop. If Fatah can lose control of Gaza to Hamas in a matter of weeks, if the Egyptians leadership can now talk about re-visiting and perhaps trashing a 30-year peace treaty, then previous assumptions and strategies and ways of doing business need to be re-thought”.

We posted earlier, on 11 August, on our sister blog www.palestine-mandate.com here about Mahmoud Abbas telling visiting American Congressmen that negotiations had been blocked by Netanyahu’s demand to keep IDF troops in the Jordan Valley: “Abbas told a group of visiting American Congressmen, including Steny Hoyer of Maryland [Democratic Party whip in the House of Representatives], that ‘there are no negotiations now because Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has placed pre-conditions’, specifically a demand that there be an IDF presence in the Jordan Valley. Abbas told the delegation that the discussions he has had with Netanyahu in the past ‘have led nowhere, because unless we agree to be occupied by IDF troops, he doesn’t want to talk about anything in the next step’. Abbas, according to Hoyer, said he met with Netanyahu last year, but that those talks ‘went nowhere because Netanyahu only wanted to talk about security, and that the implementing of that security was deployment of IDF troops in the Jordan Valley’.”

Netanyahu is due to speak about an hour after Abbas makes his address in the UNGA on Friday, around the middle of the day in New York, and evening here in Jerusalem.

**On the Jordan Valley, Netanyahu said in the 2001 home video, linked to above, that “His approach to White House demands to withdraw from Palestinian territory under the Oslo accords, he says, drew on his grandfather’s philosophy: ‘It would be better to give two per cent than to give 100 per cent’. He therefore signed the 1997 agreement to pull the Israeli army back from much of Hebron, the last Palestinian city under direct occupation, as a way to avoid conceding more territory.
‘The trick’, he says, ‘is not to be there [in the occupied territories] and be broken; the trick is to be there and pay a minimal price’. The ‘trick’ that stopped further withdrawals, Mr Netanyahu adds, was to redefine what parts of the occupied territories counted as a ‘specified military site’ under the Oslo accords. He wanted the White House to approve in writing the classification of the Jordan Valley, a large area of the West Bank, as such a military site. ‘Now, they did not want to give me that letter, so I did not give [them] the Hebron Agreement. I stopped the government meeting, I said: ‘I’m not signing.’ Only when the letter came, did I sign the Hebron Agreement. Why does this matter? Because at that moment I actually stopped the Oslo accord’.” This is recounted by Jonathan Cook in a 2010 article published in The National, here.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s predecessor as Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert — forced to resign to defend himself against charges of corruption — wrote an Op-Ed published today in the New York Times saying that he feels uneasy at the current turn of events: “As tensions grow, I cannot but feel that we in the region are on the verge of missing an opportunity — one that we cannot afford to miss”.

In the Op-Ed, published here, Olmert write: “The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, plans to make a unilateral bid for recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations on Friday. He has the right to do so, and the vast majority of countries in the General Assembly support his move. But this is not the wisest step Mr. Abbas can take. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has declared publicly that he believes in the two-state solution, but he is expending all of his political effort to block Mr. Abbas’s bid for statehood by rallying domestic support and appealing to other countries. This is not the wisest step Mr. Netanyahu can take. In the worst-case scenario, chaos and violence could erupt, making the possibility of an agreement even more distant, if not impossible. If that happens, peace will definitely not be the outcome The parameters of a peace deal are well known and they have already been put on the table. I put them there in September 2008 when I presented a far-reaching offer to Mr. Abbas”.

Now, by the end of 2008, according to public promises made by the Bush Administration when it launched the Annapolis process in November 2009, there was supposed to be a deal that would result in the creation of a Palestinian state.

Abbas and his advisers aware, by September 2008, that Olmert was under growing pressure to step down.

Israelis and others have accused Abbas of not responding to the Olmert offer. But, Abbas and his negotiators insist that they did produce their own map on territorial matters, and a counter-proposal on the percentage to be exchanged.

The Palestinians did not give their map to Olmert, because Olmert did not give a map to them [one was later published in Haaretz].

Barack Obama won the American Presidential election in November 2008 — to take office in January 2009.

And, on December the IDF launched Operation Cast Lead with such force, and such a death toll in its opening hours, that Abbas and his negotiators were obliged to call off further contacts.

Just before the oath of office, the IDF and Hamas each observed their own cease-fires. A few days later, Obama appointed George Mitchell as the Special UN envoy for the Middle East.

In February, Benyamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party tied with Tzipi Livni’s Kadima Party in general Israeli elections, but State President Shimon Peres decided that Netanyahu was more likely to be able to form a governing coalition. He was — the most right-wing in Israel’s history.

Mitchell got Obama to back a call for an Israeli settlement freeze, what the Palestinians said they needed to see before returning, post-Gaza war, to talks. Netanyahu haggled over the time, and got a reduction. Just as direct Israeli-Palestinian talks were set to resume, in March — and, during the visit of American Vice President Joe Biden — an unfortuitous but deliberate announcement of expansion of the Ramat Shlomo settlement blew up the arrangement.

The Palestinians also said that they wanted negotiations with Israel to resume at the point they were broken off in December 2008 — with Olmert’s offer still on the table. At some point in the spring of 2010, Palestinian negotiators say they gave to Mitchell their maps that they only showed to Olmert in 2008.

At the end of September 2010, as Netanyahu refused to renew what he insisted would be a one-time only settlement freeze, efforts to resume talks failed again.

This is when Mahmoud Abbas and his advisers decided to go to the UN. The timing was decided by several factors: Obama’s statement to the UNGA in September 2010 saying he hoped to see arrangements in place for a Palestinian state by the following year, and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s two-year state-building project August 2009-September 2011.

Now, what?

In his Op-Ed today Ehud Olmert said his “2008 parameters” should again be put on the table. He wrote that this included included a shared Jerusalem ["Arab neighborhoods" = Palestinian capital; "Jewish areas" = capital of Israel], and that neither side would declare sovereignty over Jerusalem “holy places”, to be administered jointly [with the assistance of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the USA].

Other writers have said that Olmert’s Op-Ed is a repudiation of both Netanyahu and, now, Obama. But, while Olmert’s bottom line positions are different from Netanyahu’s — it’s not by a lot. [Guessing: Netanyahu may consider joint administration over Christian and Muslim "holy places", but certainly not over Jewish "holy places" or "places of historical significance"; Netanyahu would probably not agree to sharing an East Jerusalem that would be the capital of a future a Palestinian state. The Netanyahu government has a broader, though not yet publicly defined, claim to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. And Netanyahu advisers and officials have suggested that they -- unlike both Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert -- would not allow unrestricted immigration of Palestinian refugees and the Palestinian diaspora into a future Palestinian state. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat once suggested that the future Palestinian state wouldn't, or couldn't - for financial reasons - allow unlimited Palestinian immigration, either...]

Olmert wrote, in his Op-Ed that “the territorial dispute would be solved by establishing a Palestinian state on territory equivalent in size to the pre-1967 West Bank + Gaza Strip with mutually agreed-upon land swaps that take into account the new realities on the ground”. [This is a combination of the only new proposal contained in the Geneva Initiative of December 2003, a 1:1 territorial swap, combined with the assurance of recognizing existing demographic realities on the ground that George W. Bush supplied to Israel's then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in April 2004, in acknowledgement of Sharon's 14 points of reservations on the Road Map].

On refugees, Olmert wrote that “the new Palestinian state would become the home of all the Palestinian refugees [except for a small number that Israel would absorb on humanitarian grounds] … just as the state of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people”.

And, for Israel’s security, Olmert wrote, “the Palestinian state would be demilitarized + it would not form military alliances with other nations” – [Olmert did not mention Israel retaining the Jordan Valley, but the question is left open if the Palestinians would not be in a position to defend their eastern border...]

[[And, by the way, Ehud Olmert told Turkey in his NYTimes OpEd that Israel is sorry: "In Israel, we are sorry for the loss of life of Turkish citizens in May 2010, when Israel confronted a provocative flotilla ... I am sure that the proper way to express these sentiments to the Turkish government and the Turkish people can be found".]]

As if they don’t know. Or — as if someone else should tell them.

Since their 1988 Declaration of Independence, the Palestinian National Council agreed to form their state with the borders of June 4, 1967 — the eve of the war which saw Israel conquer the West Bank and the Gaza Strip [and the Golan Heights].

In 2008, as the U.S.-brokered Annapolis direct negotiations between Israel and Palestinians faltered, then-Secretary of State Condoleezzaa Rice said that defining the borders between them would help define which Israeli Jewish settlements in the West Bank [if any] would be “legal”.

Obama’s words today at the UN go even further…

“One year ago, I stood at this podium and called for an independent Palestine. I believed then – and I believe now – that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own. But what I also said is that genuine peace can only be realized between Israelis and Palestinians themselves. One year later, despite extensive efforts by America and others, the parties have not bridged their differences. Faced with this stalemate, I put forward a new basis for negotiations in May. That basis is clear, and well known to all of us here. Israelis must know that any agreement provides assurances for their security. Palestinians deserve to know the territorial basis of their state.

Later, Obama met Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was very pleased with the Obama statement, and after that, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, with a weary and disillusioned Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who had put his head on the desk in front of him during part of the Obama speech.

Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said later that both men had reiterated their positions.

Haaretz reported later that “U.S. President Barack Obama told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday that UN action would not achieve a Palestinian state and the United States would veto any Security Council move to recognize Palestinian statehood, the White House said. ‘We would have to oppose any action at the UN Security Council including, if necessary, vetoing’, Ben Rhodes, the White House national security council spokesman, told reporters after Obama met Abbas in New York. PLO diplomatic envoy to the U.S. Maen Rashid Erekat told Haaretz that the U.S. President ‘reiterated the commitment of the U.S. to the establishment of the Palestinian state, as part of the two-state solution, and stressed the position of the US that the UN is not the right venue to reach this goal.” This article is posted here.

There were demonstrations in the West Bank on Thursday denouncing the Obama speech, and a number of Palestinian writers found a ready acceptance in American publications for their English-language Op-Ed articles or blog submissions.

But, Mahmoud Abbas and his negotiating team did not escape criticism either, from other articles such as this one published on the Al-Jazeera English-language website, here.

The pressure on Mr. Abbas in New York has been immense, and he has reportedly felt both isolated, and abandoned.

There are rumors that he is preparing to resign when he returns to Ramallah — though from which of his three posts [Chairman of the PLO, President of the Palestinian Authority, leader of the Fatah movement] is not entirely clear.

An extraordinary article in the New York Times today’s paper [Thursday], reported from both a reception in New York and Jerusalem, says that “Shimon Peres, Israel’s president, met secretly with Mr. Abbas three times in recent months in efforts to … avoid a United Nations battle. Mr. Netanyahu ultimately pulled the plug on those talks, leaving Mr. Abbas a sense of having no alternatives. Mr. Peres said in an interview in Jerusalem that he tried to convince Mr. Abbas that United Nations membership would not help because what is needed is independence for the Palestinians and security for the Israelis, and the United Nations can deliver neither. ‘He told me, “I’m alone, betrayed by the United States, betrayed by Israel and by everyone else”, ‘Mr. Peres recalled from a recent conversation. Mr. Abbas echoed those sentiments on Tuesday night. Terje Roed-Larsen, a former United Nations envoy to the Mideast who now leads the International Peace Institute in New York, hugged him and asked for a meeting later in the evening. ‘Tonight our schedule is full with the Americans’, Mr. Abbas replied. ‘They want us to meet, but we don’t, really we don’t want’. Mr. Larsen asked why he was going then. ‘I don’t know why really’, Mr. Abbas said,’I am not happy with anybody, not with the Americans, nor the Arabs. I am fed up with all these people and I don’t know what to do when I return back’.” Abbas’ weary, unguarded, unwise words to Terje Roed-Larsen are published here.

Part of what makes this so interesting is that it is not clear how the NYTimes heard this conversation — was its UN correspondent Neil MacFarquhar standing right beside the two men [Terje Roed-Larsen, former UN Special Envoy, and former Foreign Minister of Norway when he hosted Palestinians and Israelis for talks that led to the Oslo Accords]? Or, did Mr. Roed-Larsen pass this conversation on to the NYTimes?

It is also interesting to recall that Roed-Larsen himself was, in July 2004, once called persona non grata by Palestinian presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh — then working with Yasser Arafat — after Roed-Larsen told the UN Security Council that “The Palestinian leader is under house arrest but this isn’t an excuse for passivity + inaction”.

Another NYTimes article published today, reported from the corridors of the United Nations, says that in his address to the UN General Assembly, “President Obama tried to qualify his own call, just a year ago, for a Palestinian state. And President Nicolas Sarkozy of France stepped forcefully into the void, with a proposal that pointedly repudiated Mr. Obama’s approach. The extraordinary tableau Wednesday at the United Nations underscored a stark new reality: the United States is facing the prospect of having to share, or even cede, its decades-long role as the architect of Middle East peacemaking. American officials acknowledged that their various last-minute attempts to jump-start Israeli-Palestinian negotiations with help from European allies and Russia had collapsed. ‘The U.S. cannot lead on an issue that it is so boxed in on by its domestic politics’, said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator in the government of Ehud Barak. ‘And therefore, with the region in such rapid upheaval and the two-state solution dying, as long as the U.S. is paralyzed, others are going to have to step up’.” This article is posted here.

A third article in the NYTimes, also from the UN, reported that “President Nicolas Sarkozy of France broke sharply on Wednesday with the effort by the Obama administration and some Europeans to quash the effort by the Palestinians for recognition here, instead calling for enhancing their status in the General Assembly to that of an observer state. ‘Let us cease our endless debates on the parameters’, Mr. Sarkozy said. ‘Let us begin negotiations and adopt a precise timetable’.
The timetable he suggested is resuming the negotiations in one month, agreeing on borders and security within six months and finishing a definitive agreement within one year. The Palestinians have sought a specific timeline, suggesting that endless stalling was slowly erasing the chances for a two-state solution. In the meantime, if the Palestinian effort at membership faces a Security Council veto, the deadly reverberations will be felt across the Arab world, Mr. Sarkozy warned. ‘Each of us knows that Palestine cannot immediately obtain full and complete recognition of the status of United Nations member state … But who could doubt that a veto at the Security Council risks engendering a cycle of violence in the Middle East? … ‘Why not envisage offering Palestine the status of United Nations observer state?’ said the French leader. ‘This would be an important step forward. Most important, it would mean emerging from a state of immobility that favors only the extremists’.” This can be read in full here.

Here, for the record, are the rest of Obama’s words to the UNGA yesterday on the Israeli-Palestinian situation:

“I know that many are frustrated by the lack of progress. So am I. But the question isn’t the goal we seek – the question is how to reach it. And I am convinced that there is no short cut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN – if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now. Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians – not us – who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and security; on refugees and Jerusalem.

Peace depends upon compromise among peoples who must live together long after our speeches are over, and our votes have been counted. That is the lesson of Northern Ireland, where ancient antagonists bridged their differences. That is the lesson of Sudan, where a negotiated settlement led to an independent state. And that is the path to a Palestinian state.

We seek a future where Palestinians live in a sovereign state of their own, with no limit to what they can achieve. There is no question that the Palestinians have seen that vision delayed for too long. And it is precisely because we believe so strongly in the aspirations of the Palestinian people that America has invested so much time and effort in the building of a Palestinian state, and the negotiations that can achieve one.

America’s commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable, and our friendship with Israel is deep and enduring. And so we believe that any lasting peace must acknowledge the very real security concerns that Israel faces every single day. Let’s be honest: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile, persecution, and the fresh memory of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they were.

These facts cannot be denied. The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland. Israel deserves recognition. It deserves normal relations with its neighbors. And friends of the Palestinians do them no favors by ignoring this truth, just as friends of Israel must recognize the need to pursue a two state solution with a secure Israel next to an independent Palestine.

That truth – that each side has legitimate aspirations – is what makes peace so hard. And the deadlock will only be broken when each side learns to stand in each other’s shoes. That’s what we should be encouraging. This body – founded, as it was, out of the ashes of war and genocide; dedicated, as it is, to the dignity of every person – must recognize the reality that is lived by both the Palestinians and the Israelis. The measure of our actions must always be whether they advance the right of Israeli and Palestinian children to live in peace and security, with dignity and opportunity. We will only succeed in that effort if we can encourage the parties to sit down together, to listen to each other, and to understand each other’s hopes and fears. That is the project to which America is committed. And that is what the United Nations should be focused on in the weeks and months to come”.