#friday puzzler

[montereybayaquarium]

Here's your #FridayPuzzler! Care to guess what this is?

(©Winfried Werzmirzowsky)

[realisthappenings]

UN Politics is Local Politics

As part of her neat Friday Puzzler series Barbara F. Walter asked, "Why is Israel (under Netanyahu) opposed to granting Palestinians observer state status at the UN, and why have the Palestinians (under Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas) continued to pursue it [despite it being a largely symbolic gesture]?" Basically she's asking why either side is wasting time with UN votes. I'll try to answer. Israel's reason for opposing it may be more obvious than the PA's reason for supporting it. Think about what it would look like if Israel just quietly allowed the vote to take place without protesting. Netanyahu's Likud party who have built their reputation largely on the hardline defense of Israel would look feckless and disoriented. Now even if they didn't have an election coming up (which they do) it doesn't take a political strategist to realize the electorate will hold them accountable even if it doesn't actually matter much. No politician is going to depend on the ability of voters to parse through nuanced international legal institutions. Instead Bibi is required to spend at least some resources loudly protesting a rather meaningless event. It's Israel's national level political systems that dictated this little gem of international politicking. I think you can apply the same model to the PA and Mahmoud Abbas. They need to keep pushing for progress in the UN to maintain credibility with the general Palestinian public; something they can point to as an accomplishment. Hamas has encroached on the PA's legitimacy as the voice of Palestine for some time and while Hamas can claim rocket attacks the PA has to show they represent Palestinian interests too. Like Israel, they don't trust the common man to realize just how symbolic the vote was, only this time voter ignorance works to the PA's advantage.