Palestine: democracies in diplomatic disarray

It has only taken 10 days for 22 of the top 25 leading democratic nations listed in the Democracy Index 2011 to fall into abject diplomatic disarray.

Their acute discomfort follows the rush by 17 of them to vote to admit Palestine as a non-observer state at the UN General Assembly on November 29 - whilst the other 5 abstained.

Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, Finland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Malta, United Kingdom, Costa Rica, Japan, South Korea, Belgium, Mauritius and Spain - should have all joined the remaining three - Canada, United States and the Czech Republic - who cast a " NO" vote.

Instead they swallowed the following assuring statement by PLO Chairman and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas prior to the vote:

We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a State established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of the State that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine.

It mattered not to their democratic sensitivities that President Abbas was a lapsed President whose term of office had expired in January 2009 - a situation that would never be tolerated in their countries.

It mattered even less that Abbas was purporting to speak on behalf of a territorial entity he did not control - even as a tyrannical despot.

It was of no consequence that Abbas claimed to represent a population that was hopelessly split in its allegiances between the PLO and its arch rival Hamas.

It was irrelevant that no elections had been held for the last six years to give the people any say on which one of these protagonists - or anyone else who might want to throw his hat into the ring - should represent them.

Foolishly they gave Abbas their vote supporting:

the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their State of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967

Their votes were cast in the full knowledge that they were adding their voices to those who saw nothing dishonourable in jettisoning the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap to the political scrap heap by endorsing the PLO's unilateral approach to the United Nations in breach of those internationally negotiated agreements.