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Apology to Readers
The Maine Campus regrets to inform readers that instances of plagiarism have been identified in several political columns written by Pardis Delijani. Thirteen of her 15 columns contained varying amounts of lifting from national and international news sources. The writer declared these instances to be unintentional.
A reader brought to the newspaper’s attention one occasion of plagiarism in a Delijani article published in February 2011, and an investigation by staff members of The Maine Campus revealed others.
Delijani has been removed from her paid columnist position but plans to contribute to our opinion pages on state and local issues. Senior political science student Ben Goodman will replace her in the Monday political columnist spot.
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The Palestinian bid for statehood was presented at the United Nations this past Friday.
A boost from enthusiastic supporters who set off to the Muqata — the administrative center of the Palestinian National Authority — to pay respects at Yasser Arafat’s grave accompanied the bid with beeping horns and the playing of patriotic songs along the way.
While this tactical move by the Palestinians is ingenious, it also remains, without a doubt, quite controversial.
The status of statehood would be valuable to the Palestinians because it means negotiations would be based on the lines Israel held before 1967. The Palestinians would also have access to international judicial bodies, including the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
How is this type of fairness adherent to the policies that the United States stands for? The basic rights that the Palestinian Authority lacks in this conflict are simply unjust, yielding an easy answer to this question — it’s all about politics. However, the Obama administration must make sacrifices in order to gain and maintain appeal in the Arab world.
The United States, being the primary ally of Israel, is, of course, against the proposal. President Obama stated his opposition to the bid for statehood on Wednesday, setting the foreign policy issue double-standard that the U.S. has been historically known for ever since the administration first decided to involve itself in the Arab democracy movement.
The main argument made by President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was that peace should not be coming from resolutions through the U.N., but through direct talks between the two regions.
President Obama’s speech illustrated many blatant inconsistencies in the administration’s position.
At the beginning of his presidency, Obama committed to making peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians a priority. However, unable to proceed with this challenging endeavor after two and a half years, the leader responsible for opening the door to Palestinian state membership at the United Nations last year is now threatening to veto said membership.
No matter how much of an effort the president puts into getting on the right side of Arab history, Israel is always successful in pushing him back.
President Obama stood as the potential beacon of Arab democracy until the controversy of the Palestinian bid. And because of both Israel’s stubbornness and American-Jewish lobbyists, the Obama administration, like so many others before it, is forced to obey the commands of the Israelis.
But let’s not confuse Benjamin Netanyahu’s bullheadedness with all Israeli governments in past years. In fact, in 1948, Israel followed a similar process for statehood as the one sought now by Palestine.
The Palestinian Authority is following the example of many current U.N. members, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and South Sudan, which recently seceded from Sudan after a civil war and recently gained admission to the U.N.
Also, Arab countries that have never recognized Israel would do so if Palestine was recognized as part of a two-state solution with Israel. This would confirm Israel’s solid standing in the region as well as aid the country in acquiring more allies, something it really needs since the loss of two of its closer confidants — Egypt and Turkey.
World leaders should pause before criticizing the Palestinians’ intention to go about the same legal process many of the United Nations’ existing members achieved international recognition for. In the past, Palestinian leaders may have sought statehood through violence and terrorism, but the Palestinian Authority, unlike Hamas, is presently pursuing statehood nonviolently and diplomatically.
So why is this effort to be discouraged?
If the Obama administration truly wants to obtain a favorable image in the Arab Spring, it obviously needs to assert its power and influence as an arbiter and cut the cord that allows Israel its free ride, where business goes unregulated and unpunished.
Nonetheless, the United States and Israel have been pressuring council members to vote against the proposal or abstain from it. Support from nine of the council’s 15 members is needed for the measure to pass, but even if the Palestinians assemble that backing, the United States has promised to veto — a most disappointing, heinous act, which would cause the destruction of the foundation the Obama administration is slowly building in the Arab.
There is no denying that further negotiations need to be made to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, including those revolving around borders, repatriation of refugees, national security and the claims of both sides to Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas stated that he will urge Israel to resume negotiations immediately after a United Nations vote. Nonetheless, both sides must avoid violence and work to repair relations. And the Obama administration must not fall into the trap of heeding to the Israeli government’s every whim.
Pardis Delijani is a fourth-year political science student. Her political columns will appear every Monday.
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