Recognizing Palestinian state would lead to more violence

WASHINGTON — U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state is one of those tempting silver bullets that upon close examination would produce the opposite of its promised result. Rather than promoting peace, it would likely ignite conflict both within Palestinian society and between Israel and the Palestinians.

Never mind that such recognition would undermine the very process of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to which the two parties agreed, which United States and the global community have endorsed, and which is supposed to produce a Palestine that lives in peace with its Jewish neighbor.

Never mind, too, that we have been here before with a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood followed by strong international recognition, followed not by peace but, instead, by more conflict.

In late 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organization adopted a resolution that declared an independent state of Palestine. PLO chairman Yasser Arafat declared himself the president of Palestine, and more than 100 nations have since recognized an independent Palestine over the years.

No state arose and no peace ensued because Israel and the Palestinians had not ironed out the details of mutual recognition, borders and other basic matters that are the sin qua non of real peace. Why anyone would expect a different result this time with the parties wrangling over the same issues defies explanation.

If anything, the situation is more complicated now, making the stakes of U.S. recognition of statehood even riskier.

Arafat was the undisputed Palestinian leader a generation ago, the singular figure who could have made peace had he wanted to. Now, Palestinians are split between Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority and controls the West Bank, and the terrorist group Hamas, which has run Gaza since 2007 when it replaced Fatah after a bloody coup.

The Palestinian factions remain at war, one that could reignite in the aftermath of a U.S. recognition of statehood by making control of the Palestinian government that much more important to each faction.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are making commendable progress in building such essential features of a future state as courts, schools, and infrastructure. But, Abbas refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and appears disinterested in serious negotiations.