Palestinians' thorny UN bid

For years, Israel and the United States have wanted the Palestinians to use diplomacy instead of violence to establish a homeland in the Middle East -- but this week's looming showdown at the United Nations is hardly what the allies had in mind.

The problem is that the Palestinian Authority is aggressively seeking full UN membership, and two-thirds of member countries are inclined to go along. The decision of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to depart from the bilateral negotiating script has set off alarms in Washington and Jerusalem -- and triggered frantic diplomatic efforts by the Obama administration and the European Union to head off full UN statehood for the Palestinians. But the prospect has so excited everyday Palestinians that their leaders may find it politically impossible to back down.

If the Palestinians carry out their plan, the Obama administration will inevitably exercise its Security Council veto. It has ample reasons for doing so, including averting a potential nonstop diplomatic and legal assault on Israel at the UN and elsewhere. Politically, a veto would also protect the president from the wrath of Jewish voters.

But such a veto would be costly indeed, giving ammunition to critics who see our support of human rights as selective and hypocritical. It would damage the United States in the Arab world, where our support of democratic uprisings has won friends. And it could be followed by a congressional cutoff of funds for the authority, infuriating Palestinian voters and undermining their more moderate leaders.

If all else fails, a veto is warranted to shield Israel from further marginalization. But a smarter move for both Washington and Jerusalem might be to turn this potential diplomatic Waterloo to advantage -- by proposing a resolution that would admit Palestine as a state existing alongside Israel next door. This crucial explicit condition would affirm the two-state solution everyone is always talking about -- and affirm the acceptance of Israel by the Palestinians without presenting them with the as-yet politically insurmountable hurdle of openly recognizing Israel.

This approach would spare the United States from positioning itself against the majority of the world's nations, and it would spare the Palestinian leadership a veto that could provoke crushing disappointment at home. A well-tailored two-state resolution, on the other hand, would give the Palestinians the acceptance they crave -- and a leg up on statehood. But by accepting Palestine into the community of nations, such a move could subject the nascent country to international standards and legal requirements that until now have been more likely to constrain Israel. Both sides might fight endlessly before the International Court of Justice, but exchanging legal briefs is better than trading missiles.

Remember that both the United States and Israel have long supported a two-state solution and the Palestinian Authority as well, which for all its failings is preferable to the more violent alternative of Hamas. Granting the Palestinian Authority this seeming win would bolster its wavering support among Palestinians frustrated by long years without negotiated progress.

At the same time, a greater UN role for the Palestinians, coupled with growing antagonism toward Israel in Egypt, Turkey and other countries, may nudge Israeli leaders toward the realization that a new approach is needed. Israeli security cannot be guaranteed by arms -- or American vetoes -- alone. Palestinians, meanwhile, must realize that Israelis have a right to live in peace. That means no suicide bombers or raining rockets -- and no prospect of a wholesale return to what is now Israel. But it can mean, at last, a land of their own.

Handled adroitly, the crisis brewing at the UN just now could turn out to be especially fruitful in the cause of Mideast peace.