I write little here about Israel/Palestine as I have little to say which countless others are not saying. Plus I don’t have first-hand professional experience.

What is going on? Of course the Palestinians want to advance their claims and demands on all international fronts. Upping their status at the UN to that of an ‘observer state’ might help them launch new legal claims against Israel. But that would be far from straightforward – maybe even impossible in practice:

European countries worried about Palestinian access to the ICC blocked a Spanish-French proposal for nonmember observer status for Palestine, and there has even been discussion among Europeans about creating a new legal status for the Palestinians that would provide an upgrade in status but block potential access to the ICC and other international legal enforcement agencies.

Even if the Palestinians got nonmember state status at the U.N., which is the maximum they could achieve under the present circumstances, and were able to become party to the ICC, there are serious doubts about their practical ability to bring charges against Israel or Israeli officials. Any request for such charges would be more a diplomatic and political question than a legal one, and both the ICC and prosecutors would be subject to significant domestic and international political pressures that make it hard to imagine such a scenario actually unfolding…

Here is a neat account by former UK diplomat Carne Ross of the procedural goings-on in the fetid New York UN corridors aimed at shunting the issue into the long grass so that President Obama is not embarrassed into using a veto to block Palestine’s UN membership. Note Carne’s shrewd view on the Russia/China angle here – to get some PR ‘progressive’/Arab credit but not do anything on the substance:

So far, only the US has declared its outright opposition to the membership application, but we can be confident that there will be others who will abstain on the vote, giving the US some political company and, perhaps, avoiding them having to veto (this will happen if the Palestinians cannot muster the 9 votes necessary to pass a resolution, thus forcing a veto if the US wants to stop it).  Germany and Colombia will abstain, and perhaps the UK too.  

Russia and China will support the Palestinian initiative but without sufficient vigour to take on the Americans in the Council.  They will be not be desperately unhappy if this gets blocked.  Their objective is to look good to the Arab world, and this objective is met by merely promising their support, and not by spending any serious political energy on it.

Meanwhile, the US is putting ferocious pressure on weaker non-permanent members like Bosnia.  This is a vicious nasty business: I have seen it done.  A number of diplomats have told me about the extremely aggressive pressure being put on them by US diplomats, including here at the UN.  But the pressure will also involve high-level phone calls from Hillary Clinton and the President, and others.  

This type of pressure is very, very difficult for weaker countries, who may be dependent on the US in some way or other (like Bosnia), to resist.  This is how power works.

Yup. If you want the privilege of being on the UN Security Council, you have to play hardball with the mean players who always hang around there.

I wonder how Bosnia will end up voting if it gets to a UNSC vote where Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently a member. The Muslim/Bosniac position will be to support Palestine, and the Bosnian Serbs will vote for the best available anti-Muslim option (in this case whatever suits Israel). Bosnian Croats anyone?

Likely BH position: abstain. All too difficult.