By Armida Alisjahbana, Woochong Um and Kanni Wignaraja
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jul 15 2022 – The start of the “Decade of Action” to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has also marked the start of an unprecedented period of overlapping crises.

The Covid-19 pandemic and crises of conflict, hunger, climate change and environmental degradation are mutually compounding, pushing millions into acute poverty, health, and food insecurity. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has further disrupted supply chains and brought spikes in food and fuel prices.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

A region at risk

The devastation caused by efforts to control the spread of Covid-19 across the Asia-Pacific region is now well documented. At least 90 million people have likely fallen into extreme poverty, and more than 150 million and 170 million people are under the poverty lines of US$3.20 and $5.50 a day, respectively.

The pandemic drove home the consequences of uneven progress on the SDGs and exposed glaring gaps in social protection and health-care systems. The dynamics of recovery in Asia and the Pacific have been shaped by access to vaccination and diagnostics, as well as by the structure and efficacy of national economies and public health systems.

Yet for all the economic contraction, greenhouse gas emissions in the Asia-Pacific region continued largely unabated, and the long-burning climate crisis continues to rage.

The positive effects of producing less waste and air pollution, for example, have been short-lived. Action lags, even as many countries in Asia and the Pacific have committed to scale up the ambition of their climate action and pursue a just energy transition. The political and economic drive to move away from fossil fuels remains weak, even with soaring prices of oil and gas across the region.

As the Ukraine conflict drives greater uncertainty and exacerbates food and fuel shortages, leading to surging prices, security is increasingly at the center of economic and political priorities.

This confluence of issues is adding to the shocks already dealt with by the pandemic and triggering crises of governance in some parts of our region. Again, the poorest and most vulnerable groups are the most affected.

Woochong Um

Price pressures on everyday necessities like food and fuel are straining household budgets, yet governments will find it more difficult to step in this time. Government responses to the previous succession of shocks have reduced fiscal space while leaving heightened national debt burdens in their wake.

It has never been more important to ensure that the integrated aspects of economic, social, and environmental sustainability are built into our approaches to recovery.

As our joint ESCAP-ADB-UNDP 2022 report on Building Forward Together for the SDGs highlighted, despite important pockets of good practice, countries of Asia and the Pacific need to act much more decisively – and faster and at scale – on this imperative. This redefines what progress means and how it is measured, as development that promotes the well-being of the whole – people and planet.

Extraordinary agenda for extraordinary times

All this is a sobering backdrop for achieving the ambitious agenda of the SDGs. But these interlocking shocks are also a result of a failure to advance on the SDGs as an integrated agenda.

We need unconventional responses and investments that fundamentally change what determines sustainable development outcomes. Rather than treating our current looming crises of energy, food and human security as distinct, we must address their interlinkages.

To illustrate, a determined focus on fiscal reforms that deliver environmental and social benefits can generate big wins. Asia and the Pacific can lead with action on long-standing commitments to eliminate costly environmentally harmful subsidies, including for fossil fuels.

Kanni Wignaraja

Some countries took advantage of reduced fossil-fuel consumption during the Covid-19 lockdowns and mobility restrictions to increase taxes on fuel to raise funds for recovery programs and provide health insurance and social protection for those least protected.

There are also opportunities to repurpose the estimated US$540 billion spent each year on global agricultural subsidies to promote more inclusive agriculture, and healthier and more sustainable systems of food production.

Better targeting smallholder farmers and rewarding good practices such as promoting shifts to regenerative agriculture can help transform food systems, restore ecosystems, and protect biodiversity.

Just transitions

For our part, as UN agencies and multilateral organizations, we are committed to supporting countries to pursue just transitions to rapid decarbonization and climate resilience. Scaling up the deployment of greener renewables will be key to meeting energy security needs.

Similarly, the current food crisis must be a catalyst for an urgent transition to more sustainable, locally secure food production and markets. Agricultural practices that foster local resilience, adopt nature-based solutions while increasing efficiencies, and support climate mitigation practices can strengthen long-term food security.

The SDGs test resolves and require us to address the difficult trade-offs of recovery. To emerge from interlinked crises of energy, food and fiscal space, we must accelerate the transformations needed to end poverty and protect the planet.

We must ensure that by 2030 all people, not just a few, enjoy a greater level of peace and prosperity.

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the Asian Development Bank and the UN Development Program will host a side event at the High-Level Political Forum for Sustainable Development on July 12, 2022, that will explore these themes further.

Armida Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
Kanni Wignaraja is Assistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Woochong Um is Managing Director General of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By External Source
Jul 15 2022 (IPS-Partners)

This virtual event was hosted by BRAC, the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the UN, and the Permanent Mission of Rwanda to the UN on the sidelines of the 2022 UN High Level Political Forum.

This webinar reflects on BRAC’s role in generating development lessons in the Global South and Bangladesh’s remarkable progress towards meeting the UN SDGs. The panel will discuss SDGs 1: No Poverty; 4: Quality Education, 5: Gender Equality, and 17: Partnerships for the Goals. We hope this event will also promote the need for continued global cooperation in order to achieve the UN SDGs, especially in the midst of compounding global crises.

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Jul 15 2022 – The manufacture in Chile of an electric bus christened Queltehue, a wading bird native to the country, is another step towards electromobility and in the fight against pollution that triggers frequent environmental crises and smog emergencies in Santiago and other cities.

The National Electromobility Strategy, updated and relaunched in 2021, aims for 100 percent of the public transport vehicle fleet and 40 percent of private cars to be electric by 2050. By 2035, internal combustion engine cars will no longer be sold in this country.

That means that in less than 30 years some five million vehicles will switch from fuel to electricity, avoiding the emission of some 11 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year and reducing spending on oil and petroleum products by more than 3.3 billion dollars a year.

Electric mobility can also be clean and with zero emissions, if this long narrow South American country sandwiched between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean takes advantage of its enormous potential to produce solar and wind energy thanks to the abundant sunlight in the Atacama Desert and the strong winds in coastal areas and in the southern region of Magallanes.

However, much remains to be done because there are currently only about 2,750 electric vehicles in circulation in Chile and there are only about 310 public chargers to serve them.

A notable stride forward in the last four years has been the increase in the number of electric public transport buses, which now account for 20 percent of the 6,713 buses that serve passengers in Santiago, where 7.1 million of the country’s 19.1 million inhabitants live.

At the Los Espinos Electroterminal, in the municipality of Peñalolén in the Andes foothills bordering Santiago, the electric buses of the private company Metbus begin and end their routes through the Chilean capital. “We noticed that the passengers are more relaxed,” company inspector José Bazán, who traveled twice to Shenzhen, China to buy the electric buses, told IPS. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

In May, Minister of Transport and Telecommunications Juan Carlos Muñoz confirmed that another 70 electric buses will serve some 50,000 daily passengers in the working-class municipalities of La Pintana, San Joaquín and Puente Alto, on the southern outskirts of Santiago.

“Bringing electromobility and its benefits to sectors that have been left behind by development not only makes a city more sustainable, it makes it more inclusive,” he said at the time.

“Quality transportation is fundamental for people to leave their cars parked and opt for more efficient modes, which will allow us to make Santiago an environmentally friendly city,” Muñoz added.

So far, electric buses for public transport, a sector that is in private hands in Chile, have come from Chinese companies, especially BYD and Foton, but that is expected to change as electric mobility expands.

The strategy not only targets public transportation, but also freight, commercial vehicles and vehicles used in key industries in the local economy, such as mining.

Engineers Ricardo Repenning and Felipe Cevallos, partners in Reborn, pose for a photo in front of their factory in Rancagua, the first in Chile to manufacture and reassemble electric buses, for now for the state copper industry, but with the intention of extending to urban and rural public transport. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Successful experience in the mines

Felipe Cevallos, a 32-year-old mechanical engineer, and Ricardo Repenning, a 33-year-old electrical engineer, are partners in the Chilean company Reborn Electric Motors, which began by converting diesel vehicles to electric ones, but this year will manufacture 104 electric buses for the El Teniente mine of the state-owned copper company Codelco.

These buses do not emit CO2 or make noise and can safely carry 24 passengers each.

“We have successfully carried passengers a total of 210,000 kilometers in the mine in difficult conditions of mud and salt, steep slopes and high levels of humidity,” Cevallos proudly told IPS during a visit to the company’s plant in the municipality of Rancagua, 86 kilometers south of Santiago.

The 3,000-square-meter automotive facility employs 50 people whose average age is 30, and can produce up to 200 vehicles per year.

The buses are made up of 45 percent Chilean parts, while the bodies are brought from Brazil, the engines come from Canada and the batteries are made in China.

“We manufacture the power and control branches, the distribution strip and the low to high voltage domains, the structures, displays and software to run the systems and the engine cooling cycles and other components,” Cevallos said.

A picture of one of the electric buses on the assembly line at the Reborn plant. Each bus contains 45 percent Chilean parts, while the rest are imported from Brazil, Canada and China. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

At El Teniente, the world’s largest underground copper deposit, there are 24 double-gun 150-kw chargers that can charge two Queltehue buses in 40 minutes.

(The scientific name of the Queltehue or Southern Lapwing, the species for which the bus was named, is Vanellus chilensis.)

Other buses operate from Rancagua and another 10 chargers are being installed at the terminal of Transportes Link, the operator of the public transport service, in partnership with Reborn.

“Fast charging requires more power and better splicing. The electrolinera charging station charges faster, but the vehicle must be able to support faster charging,” Repenning explained.

Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer and exporter, is committed to using only electric vehicles to transport workers at El Teniente, which is located under the hill of the same name in the municipality of Machalí, some 120 kilometers from Santiago.

“The 104 buses that we will deliver will transport the workers between their arrival points and locker rooms to the interior of the mine. Each one travels 15 to 20 kilometers, largely through tunnels,” said Repenning.

He added that Reborn manufactures and reassembles electric buses.

“We started out by reconverting diesel buses that had reached the end of their useful life and transforming them into 100 percent electric. In 2020 we started making brand-new 100 percent electric buses in the Rancagua factory,” he explained.

Cables of all colors and sizes are used at the Reborn electric bus plant in the Chilean town of Rancagua. The company is recognized by the international Society of Automotive Engineers. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

The company is now focused on transportation in the mining industry, but its technology can be applied to urban and rural transportation – and that is the direction of its future expansion.

Reborn has been recognized by SAE International, formerly named the Society of Automotive Engineers.

“When the batteries were very heavy, a lot of passenger capacity was lost. Today, batteries have greatly improved their energy density,” and that facilitates the electrification of public transportation, Repenning said.

Pending challenges

Land transportation absorbs about 30 percent of the total energy consumed by Chile and the greenhouse gases it generates represent between 17 and 25 percent of the total gases emitted by this country.

Luciano Ahumada, director of the School of Information Technology and Telecommunications at the Diego Portales University (UDP), told IPS that “electromobility is a tremendous tool, perhaps the most important one, for achieving carbon neutrality and thus making us responsible for our environment.”

Ahumada said that among the biggest problems of electromobility are the high price of vehicles and the lack of confidence among users that they can count on a network that recharges batteries in a timely manner.

The private company Metbus is a pioneer in electromobility in Chile. It brought the first two electric buses from China in 2017. It now operates 1,430 electric buses, the largest fleet in South America, with vehicles equipped with air-conditioning, WIFI, USB and camera systems. At the Electroterminal it installed solar panels to generate the energy it consumes in its offices. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

An electric bus in Chile costs around 300,000 dollars and a car around 50,000 dollars. But the operating cost of both is a third or a quarter of that of combustion engine vehicles.

“The biggest challenge is to generate an incentive for the purchase and production of electric vehicles and to create and install charging infrastructure and a charging management system that is reliable and sustainable,” said Ahumada.

Héctor Novoa, a professor at the UDP Faculty of Architecture who is working on a doctoral thesis on electric mobility, believes that the Chilean electromobility strategy has pros and cons.

“Chile has the largest fleet in the southern hemisphere with electric buses in public transportation,” he noted.

“But its public policy has gone hand in hand with favoring the involvement of actors that have a share of the energy business. Electromobility is also a business model,” Novoa said.

He cited as examples the Copec group of companies, dedicated to forestry, energy and gas stations, and the Chilean subsidiary of the Italian transnational Enel, focused on electricity and gas.

Many young university graduates work at the Reborn company that operates in the city of Rancagua, south of the Chilean capital, where electric buses are assembled for the El Teniente copper mine, but which has a goal of producing buses for urban and rural public transport. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

“Copec has electric vehicle terminals. Where previously the buses were supplied with fuel, now they are sold electricity. Public policy has gone hand in hand with the private sector to secure for it certain parts of the business,” Novoa told IPS.

But the academic regretted that the installation of public electric chargers “has targeted certain upscale neighborhoods and municipalities of Santiago, which points to a strengthening of inequality.

“The charging infrastructure is too limited to allow charging in public places without being exposed to being vandalized,” he acknowledged.

Novoa also called for greater clarity regarding how the city would absorb the new charging infrastructure and make the distribution more egalitarian.

He concurred with Ahumada that “electromobility is a key element for decarbonization” and he also believes that the high price of electric vehicles limits their development.

He stressed, however, that “electromobility is based on an awareness linked to scientific evidence in international forums that brings the ecological and scientific world closer to politics.”

The academic also urged consideration of a largely ignored aspect: the fact that an important part of vehicle emissions comes not from exhaust but from brake pad and tire wear that produces toxic particulate matter.

In saturated zones this fine particulate matter pollutant is significant, Novoa said.

“Climate change has accelerated the transformation processes associated with decarbonizing not only transport, but also other areas linked to industry, such as energy generation,” he said.

By Norman Solomon
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Jul 15 2022 – Pundits are focused on Joe Biden’s tanking poll numbers, while progressives continue to be alarmed by his dismal job performance. Under the apt headline “President Biden Is Not Cutting the Mustard,” last week The American Prospect summed up: “Young people are abandoning him in droves because he won’t fight for their rights and freedom.”

Ryan Cooper wrote that “at a time when Democrats are desperate for leadership — especially some kind of strategy to deal with a lawless and extreme Supreme Court — he is missing in action.”

Yes, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema team up with Republicans to stymie vital measures. But the president’s refusal to issue executive orders that could enact such popular measures as canceling student debt and many other policies has been part of a derelict approach as national crises deepen. Recent events have dramatized the downward Biden spiral.

Biden’s slow and anemic response to the Supreme Court’s long-expected Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade spotlighted the magnitude of the stakes and the failure.

The grim outlook has been underscored by arrogance toward progressive activists.

Consider this statement from White House communications director Kate Bedingfield last weekend as she reacted to wide criticism: “Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party. It’s to deliver help to women who are in danger and assemble a broad-based coalition to defend a woman’s right to choose now, just as he assembled such a coalition to win during the 2020 campaign.”

The traditional response to such arrogance from the White House toward the incumbent’s party base is to grin — or, more likely, grimace — and bear it. But that’s a serious error for concerned individuals and organizations. Serving as enablers to bad policies and bad politics is hardly wise.

Polling released by the New York Times on Monday highlighted that most of Biden’s own party doesn’t want him to run for re-election, “with 64 percent of Democratic voters saying they would prefer a new standard-bearer in the 2024 presidential campaign.” And, “only 26 percent of Democratic voters said the party should renominate him.”

A former ambassador to Portugal who was appointed by President Obama, Allan Katz, has made a strong case for Biden to announce now that he won’t run for re-election. Writing for Newsweek under the headline “President Biden: I’m Begging You — Don’t Run in 2024. Our Country Needs You to Stand Down,” Katz contended that such an announcement from Biden would remove an albatross from the necks of Democrats facing tough elections in the midterms.

In short, to defeat as many Republicans as possible this fall, Biden should be seen as a one-term president who will not seek the Democratic nomination in 2024.

Why push forward with this goal? The #DontRunJoe campaign that our team at RootsAction launched this week offers this explanation: “We felt impelled to intervene at this time because while there is a mainstream media debate raging over whether Joe Biden should run again, that discussion is too narrow and lacking in substance — focused largely on his age or latest poll numbers”.

“We object to Biden running in 2024 because of his job performance as president. He has proven incapable of effectively leading for policies so badly needed by working people and the planet, including policies he promised as a candidate.”

It’s no secret that Republicans are very likely to win the House this November, probably by a large margin. And the neofascist GOP has a good chance of winning the Senate as well, although that could be very close.

Defeating Republicans will be hindered to the extent that progressive and liberal forces circle the political wagons around an unpopular president in a defense of the unacceptable status quo.

While voters must be encouraged to support Democrats — the only way to beat Republicans — in key congressional races this fall, that should not mean signing onto a quest to renew Biden’s lease on the White House.

RootsAction has emphasized: “While we are announcing the Don’t Run Joe campaign now, we are urging progressive, anti-racist, feminist and pro-working-class activists to focus on defeating the right wing in this November’s elections. Our all-out launch will come on November 9, 2022 — the day after those midterm elections.”

With all the bad news and negative polling about Biden in recent weeks, the folly of touting him for a second term has come into sharp focus. While the president insists that he plans to run again, he has left himself an escape hatch by saying that will happen assuming he’s in good health.

But what we should do is insist that — whatever his personal health might be — the health of the country comes first. Democratic candidates this fall should not be hobbled by the pretense that they’re asking voters to support a scenario of six more years for President Biden.

It’s time to create a grassroots groundswell that can compel Joe Biden to give public notice — preferably soon — that he won’t provide an assist to Republican forces by trying to extend his presidency for another four years.

A pledge to voluntarily retire at the end of his first term would boost the Democratic Party’s chances of getting a stronger and more progressive ticket in 2024 — and would convey in the meantime that Democratic candidates and the Biden presidency are not one and the same.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of a dozen books including Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State, published this year in a new edition as a free e-book. His other books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 15 2022 – The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which dates back to the mid-1940s, is one of the longest military confrontations defying a permanent solution – even as it continues to be on the agenda of the United Nations whose primary mandate is the maintenance of international peace and security.

But regrettably there has been no peace nor security in the long-festering battle for a Palestinian homeland.

The multiple peace plans floating around Middle Eastern and Western capitals included a proposed “one-state solution”, a “two- state solution” and the 1993 “Oslo Accords”, a peace treaty based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 aimed at fulfilling the “right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”.

But none of them really got off the ground.

Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), has a new plan for an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation.

In an interview with IPS, Dr Ben-Meir said after 73 years of conflict, regardless of the many changes on the ground, the political wind that swept the region, and the intermittent violence between Israel and Palestine, the Palestinians will not, under any circumstances give up on their aspiration for statehood.

“Ultimately, the creation of an independent Palestinian state that exists side-by-side with Israel remains the only viable option to end their conflict”, argued Dr Meir, who has taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years.

“Given however the substantive irreversible fact that were created on the ground since 1967, an independent Palestinian state can peacefully coexist with Israel only through the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation that would subsequently be joined by Jordan,” he said.

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the S tate of Palestine, addresses the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By definition, a confederation is a “voluntary associations of independent states that, to secure some common purpose, agree to certain limitations on their freedom of action and establish some joint machinery of consultation or deliberation” [emphasis added].

This is necessitated by the facts and the requirement that all sides will have to fully and permanently collaborate on many levels required by the changing conditions on the ground, most of which can no longer be restored to the status quo ante, he explained.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00438200211066350.

Excerpts from the Q&A follows:

Q: What is unique about the proposed confederation—and how different is it from several of the failed peace agreements over the last 75 years?

A: What is unique about the proposed confederation is that the three countries, as independent states, would join together on issues of common interest that cannot be addressed but in full collaboration under the framework of confederation.

It is imperative for the three main players to address the following facts on the ground and their national security collectively, as they can no longer reverse them to the status quo ante. These constitute the foundation of the confederation and include:

The interspersed Israeli and Palestinian populations in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Israel proper, which can no longer be separated and is the backbone of confederation;

The intrinsic religious connection all three states have to Jerusalem, including the fact that the Palestinians will never give up on East Jerusalem becoming the Palestinian capital; albeit Jerusalem can never be divided physically, and the border between East and West Jerusalem is only political and applicable for administrative purposes;

The intertwined national security concerns of Israelis and Palestinians; the need to continue the current cooperation in this critical area, and the need to further expand their collaboration once a Palestinian state is created: the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the majority of which will have to remain in place because under no circumstance will Israel ever evacuate all the settlements; the Palestinian refugees who must be resettled and/or compensated, as the right of return has never been considered as a viable option even by the Palestinians, albeit tacitly.

Thus, given the inevitability of coexistence, whether under hostile or peaceful conditions, and the interconnectedness on all the above five levels, the establishment of a confederation as the ultimate goal would allow both sides to jointly resolve and manage their differences.

The above facts must be factored in as they are not subject to a dramatic shift and are central to reaching a sustainable peace agreement.

Q: Has the proposed plan been endorsed or supported by either the Israeli government or the Palestinian Authority? And what about Hamas? Any reactions from any of these warring parties?

A: The proposed Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation plan has been discussed with former and current officials and scholars from all three countries. It has been acknowledged and has largely been received well.

They admit (albeit not officially) that given the prevailing conditions—that is, the inter-connectedness between the three parties from the perspectives of territorial contiguity, national security, and economic development—they have little choice but to fully collaborate without compromising their independence as defined by the concept of confederation.

Although publicly Hamas rejects Israel’s right to exist, privately it admits that Israel is there to stay and has no choice but to cooperate with Israel on many levels.

Under the proposed confederation, the interaction between Hamas and Israel will only increase by virtue of Gaza’s location and the need of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to connect and transact with one another, which can be done largely through Israel on land.

Q: Do you plan to submit your proposal to the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council—the US, UK, France, Russia and China?

A: Our hope is that once the three countries conclude that there is really no other viable option that will bring about an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and recognize the inevitability of co-existence, the proposal will certainly be endorsed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the US, UK, France, Russia, and China.

We should bear in mind, however, that once the three countries agree to form a confederation, the Security Council need only to recognize Palestinian independence, which will not be vetoed by any of the five veto-wielding powers because they all support the establishment of a Palestinian state under conditions of peace. Beyond that, the UNSC will have no say about the formation of the confederation.

Q: Depending on the reactions of the Israelis and the Palestinians, would you amend or revise the proposal?

A: Any peace proposal, regardless of its merits, will be subject to modifications to meet some specific nuances that are of special concern to the parties involved. That said, the concept of the confederation itself will not change because it takes into consideration the many facts on the ground that are not subject to change and because it is designed to largely meet the needs and the aspirations of the three countries.

Having said that, there are still issues over which there is no consensus. Jerusalem is a case in point; the Israelis vehemently oppose the surrendering of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians and it becoming the capital of the Palestinian state.

The proposal offers a solution whereby the city will remain physically undivided while respecting each other’s inherent affinity and religious connection to the holy sites.

Moreover, both Israeli and Palestinian residents will continue to move freely between the two parts of the city without any restriction, which is exactly the case at the present.

Q: Are you planning to submit the proposal to the UN Secretary-General?

A: I believe that if the UN Secretary General is to look at the proposal, he will more than likely endorse it as it is consistent with his and the majority view of the General Assembly (GA) that the Palestinians are entitled to an independent state of their own.

We are trying now to share it with as many entities—academic and political—to engender greater receptivity. In fact, the entire proposal was published in the Spring issue of World Affairs Journal, and the Journal will have an issue in December dedicated entirely to the proposal.

We will soon seek channels to convey it directly to the Secretary General in the hope that he would formally share it with all the parties involved directly and indirectly.

This includes obviously the Palestinian Authority, Israel, and Jordan, and with the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Germany, who will by playing critical roles in various capacities.

Q: If the proposal is eventually accepted by the parties, do you think it would be prudent to seek ratification by the 193-member General Assembly and the 15-member Security Council, both of which have been involved with the Palestinian issue since its inception?

A: To the best of my knowledge once the proposal is accepted by the three parties it does not need a formal ratification by the General Assembly (GA). Indecently, the GA has already granted Palestine observer status. That said, a full endorsement of the proposal by the GA will enhance both its legitimacy and scope.

As to the UNSC, given that any new application for membership in the UN must be approved by the Security Council, the 15 member states may well have to vote to grant the Palestinians the status of full member state of the UN, which will be a given under the framework of the agreed-upon confederation.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

Excerpt:

Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “key to sustainable peace in the Middle East”, says UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, maintaining that the lack of any progress only “furthers radicalization across the region”