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Freedom Or ‘Fool’s Errand’? D.C. To Vote On Statehood Referendum

Freedom Or ‘Fool’s Errand’? D.C. To Vote On Statehood Referendum

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Long-frustrated backers of statehood for the District of Columbia are pinning their hopes on a first-ever referendum on Tuesday in a long-shot bid to become the 51st U.S. state.

Invoking the colonial-era demand of “no taxation without representation,” supporters say becoming a state would end Washingtonians’ status as second-class citizens because they lack representation in Congress.

But opponents dismiss the referendum as a “fool’s errand” destined to fail because of partisan political hurdles and the need to amend the U.S. Constitution, a procedure accomplished only 17 times since 1789.

The District of Columbia was carved out to serve as the nation’s capital, but it is not a state. Its 672,000 residents have no voting representative in the Senate or House of Representatives although they pay federal taxes, though they do have a delegate in the House.

A “yes” vote could help pressure the new Congress and president – either Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump – to admit the District of Columbia as a new state, though even advocates admit that is unlikely anytime soon.

A “yes” vote would simply be an expression of public support for statehood, a non-binding measure without any legal force.

“Statehood’s the only way that we can have the same rights and responsibilities as all the other citizens of the United States,” District of Columbia Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said.

The overwhelmingly Democratic capital city was fed up with Republican lawmakers espousing the rights of states and cities to self-governance and then interfering with local issues such as abortion and marijuana legalization, Mendelson said.

“That’s so antithetical to democratic principles, but that doesn’t seem to bother some of these folks,” he said.

The referendum seeks to upend the Constitution’s provision giving Congress legislative control over the District of Columbia.

Voters will cast a single “yes” or “no” vote on the referendum’s four parts: admission as a state, its boundaries, approval of a constitution, and guarantees of a representative form of government.

The new state would embrace the current 68-square-mile (176-square-km) district except for a core of federal property around the White House, Capitol and monument-rich National Mall.

The District Council approved the referendum unanimously, and a Washington Post poll in November 2015 showed 67 percent of residents backed statehood. The Democratic Party’s national platform also supports the idea.

“If you’re not part of a state, large parts of the constitution don’t apply to you,” said statehood advocate Ann Loikow.

Mayor Muriel Bowser and other statehood backers took the vote’s design from the successful bid in the 1790s by Tennessee, then a federal territory, to become a state through a referendum and petition to Congress.

Supporters and skeptics say that even if the referendum passes it would face a dead end in Congress, where Republicans would oppose statehood since it would add Democratic senators and a representative to Congress.

Besides the political obstacles, Roger Pilon, a constitutional scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, called the statehood quest a “fool’s errand” because of constitutional obstacles.

For the District to become a state, Congress would have to propose an amendment to the Constitution, which would then have to win a two-thirds majority vote in both the Senate and the House.

Even if an amendment could win approval in both houses of Congress, it would face another big hurdle: approval by the legislatures of at least three-fourths of the 50 states.

Washingtonians have tried to achieve statehood before, but never by an up-or-down referendum. Congress ignored a statehood petition that included a constitution voters ratified in the 1980s.

The House of Representatives rejected a statehood bill in 1993, and it failed to reach a Senate vote. A constitutional amendment for voting rights in Congress fizzled in the 1980s.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Leslie Adler)

IMAGE: Work begins on building the inaugural parade stands in front of the White House in Washington, U.S. November 3, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Palestinian Authority Leader Takes Step To Press Issue Of Statehood

Palestinian Authority Leader Takes Step To Press Issue Of Statehood

By Maher Abukhater and Paul Richter, Tribune Washington Bureau

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced plans Tuesday to press the issue of Palestinian statehood by applying for membership in 15 international agencies, despite strong Israeli opposition.

The move apparently spoiled plans by Secretary of State John F. Kerry to announce a breakthrough in talks. Instead, Abbas told Palestinian leadership gathered here that he will seek formal recognition of Palestinian statehood by the agencies because Israel did not release Palestinian prisoners on a schedule that was part of a deal reached last year to lure Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

“Unfortunately … this did not happen,” Abbas said in a meeting with the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah.

Israel, which already has released 78 prisoners in three groups, was to have released the final 26 Saturday.

Kerry had hoped to travel to Ramallah to announce an extension of talks, built on a three-way deal involving the potential early release of Jonathan Pollard, an American serving a life sentence in a North Carolina prison, on charges of spying for Israel. The deal also called for a partial freeze in the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in exchange for Abbas’ agreement not to join the international groups.

The UN General Assembly recognized the Palestinian Authority as a nonmember observer state in 2012.

Kerry abruptly canceled a planned meeting with Abbas in Ramallah and now faces the possible collapse of his eight-month-old peace initiative.

With the negotiations facing an April 30 deadline, Israel refused to release the fourth batch of prisoners because Palestinians would not commit to continuing the talks.

Kerry had offered the release of Pollard as part of a deal to keep both sides negotiating into 2015. But Abbas appeared to bow to strong pressure to take a harder line.

Israelis fear that the Palestinians will use their standing in the organizations to bring war-crimes cases and increase international isolation of Israel.

The 15 groups that Abbas applied to on Tuesday do not include the International Criminal Court, Palestinian officials said. But Abbas said he would seek to join all 63 international agencies for which the Palestinian Authority became eligible in 2012, when its status in the United Nations was upgraded.

Israel and the United States have urged Palestinians not to seek membership in the groups. A federal law provides that the U.S. halt aid to the Palestinian Authority if it joins international agencies as a state. Israel has voiced particular concern about membership in the criminal court, which could give Palestinians a platform to bring charges over Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its settlements there.

But Abbas has been under growing pressure from his domestic audience, which fears that Israel has the upper hand in the U.S.-sponsored negotiations, said Tamara Cofman Wittes, a former Obama administration official who is now with the Brookings Institution.

In addition to the dispute over the prisoners, Palestinian leaders are angry about news Tuesday that the Israeli Land Authority offered developers the rights to build 708 housing units on land Palestinians claim should be part of their future state.

The possible release of Pollard, 59, a former U.S. intelligence analyst who was jailed 28 years ago, has been highly controversial, especially with U.S. intelligence officials. U.S. officials view an early release as a possible ace in the hole they could play to make it easier for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make concessions that might anger his conservative supporters.

But Pollard’s potential release has drawn fierce opposition from U.S. officials in both parties, including former CIA chief George Tenet. They have argued that the huge trove of secrets released by Pollard did grave damage to U.S. national security, and that his release would set a dangerous precedent.

U.S. officials apparently hoped that with Pollard eligible for parole in November 2015, the backlash from any deal to set him free early would be diminished. But news that Pollard’s freedom could be part of the bargaining drew criticism from several quarters, including some supporters of Israel who argued that it would bring only a limited extension of negotiations that are widely seen to be a long shot.

On Tuesday, administration officials portrayed a Pollard release as a small concession for the top-priority goal of Mideast peace.

Asked about how the public might view release of Pollard, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the benefits of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians “transcend this issue and many others that are part of the discussions that we have.”

Kerry, at a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials in Brussels, didn’t respond to a question about Pollard’s status, but insisted that the peace effort continues.

“What is important to say about the Middle East right now is it is completely premature tonight to draw any kind of judgment, certainly any final judgment, about today’s events and where things are,” he said.

©afp.com / Philippe Desmazes

Not Ready: Palestinians Leaning Against Resuming Talks

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas strongly suggested Saturday that he would reject a peacemaking blueprint put forward by international mediators, saying he would not agree to any proposal that disregarded Palestinian conditions for the resumption of peace talks.

Abbas, who returned to the West Bank on Saturday after submitting a statehood bid at the United Nations a day earlier, told reporters accompanying him that he was still studying the proposal by the peacemaking Quartet — the U.S., European Union, United Nations and Russia.

But he appeared to tip his hand by saying “we will not deal with any initiative” that doesn’t demand a halt to Israeli settlement construction or negotiations based on borders before the 1967 War when Israel captured land the Palestinians claim for their state.

The Quartet statement made no such demands.

Abbas dug into his positions after resisting heavy, U.S.-led pressure to abandon his bid to have the U.N. recognize a state of Palestine in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. His willingness to stand up to Washington has won him newfound respect at home, where he had been considered a lackluster leader. The unilateral bid for statehood and U.N. membership reflects deep-seated Palestinian exasperation over 44 years of Israeli occupation.

Israel has had no comment on the Quartet plan to resume long-stalled negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, which mediators regard as the only way to establish a Palestinian state. Israeli leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the long-standing conditions Abbas has put forth, saying talks must go forward without imposing terms.

The Quartet urged both parties to draw up an agenda for peace talks within a month and produce comprehensive proposals on territory and security within three months. Mediators aspire to a final deal within a year, but similar plans have failed to produce a peace agreement in the past, and this latest proposal offered no program for bridging the huge differences that have stymied negotiations for most of the past three years.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon relayed the Palestinians’ statehood request to the Security Council on Friday, shortly after Abbas formally submitted it. It is expected to be shot down there, either because it won’t win the required support of nine of the Council’s 15 members, or because the U.S. will make good on its threat to veto it. The Security Council will meet Monday to deal with the membership request, but final action is likely to take weeks or months.

Washington has been lobbying hard to muster enough support in the Council to block the statehood application so the U.S. won’t have to resort to a veto — something that would be frowned upon by the Arab world at a time when autocratic regimes are coming under assault there.

Abbas told reporters, without explaining, that he expected the Council to take action within weeks, not months. With Council support necessary to be admitted to the U.N. as a state, the Palestinians are expected to ask the U.N. General Assembly, where they enjoy broad support, to grant them a more modest status upgrade to nonmember observer state from permanent observer.

On board his plane, Abbas described himself as exhausted by the international efforts to wear him down but buoyant when he explained in a speech to the General Assembly why he had sidestepped the negotiating process that had been the cornerstone of international Mideast policy for nearly two decades.

The pressure “didn’t affect our spirits to reach the target and to deliver the Palestinian message officially,” he said.

Abbas noted, without elaborating, that some unspecified Arab states had also tried to pressure him to drop the statehood application.

Palestine Formally Submits Bid For Statehood To UN

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Defying U.S. and Israeli opposition, Palestinians asked the United Nations on Friday to accept them as a member state, sidestepping nearly two decades of failed negotiations in the hope this dramatic move on the world stage would reenergize their quest for an independent homeland.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was greeted by sustained applause and appreciative whistles as he approached the dais in the General Assembly hall to deliver a speech outlining his people’s hopes and dreams of becoming a full member of the United Nations. Some members of the Israeli delegation, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Liebermann, left the hall as Abbas approached the podium.

Negotiations with Israel “will be meaningless” as long as it continues building on lands the Palestinians claim for that state, he declared, warning that his government could collapse if the construction persists. That would put 150,000 people out of work.

“This policy is responsible for the continued failure of the successive international attempts to salvage the peace process,” said Abbas, who has refused to negotiate until the construction stops. “This settlement policy threatens to also undermine the structure of the Palestinian National Authority and even end its existence.”

To another round of applause, he held up a copy of the formal membership application and said he had asked U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to expedite deliberation of his request to have the United Nations recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

Ban has to examine the application before referring it to the Security Council. Action on the membership request could take weeks, if not months.

Abbas’ jubilant mood was matched by the exuberant celebration of thousands of Palestinians who thronged around outdoor screens in town squares across the West Bank on Friday to see their president submit his historic request for recognition of a state of Palestine to the United Nations.

“I am with the president,” said Muayad Taha, a 36-year-old physician, who brought his two children, ages 7 and 10, to witness the moment. “After the failure of all other methods (to win independence) we reached a stage of desperation. This is a good attempt to put the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people on the map. Everyone is here to stand behind the leadership.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing the General Assembly shortly after Abbas, said his country was “willing to make painful compromises.”

“I extend my hand to the Palestinian people, with whom we seek a just and lasting peace,” he said, to extended applause.

Palestinians, he added, “should live in a free state of their own, but they should be ready for compromise” and “start taking Israel’s security concerns seriously.”

To be sure, Abbas’ appeal to the U.N. to recognize an independent Palestine would not deliver any immediate changes on the ground: Israel would remain an occupying force in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and continue to severely restrict access to Gaza, ruled by Palestinian Hamas militants.

The strategy also put the Palestinians in direct confrontation with the U.S., which has threatened to veto their membership bid in the Council, reasoning, like Israel, that statehood can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties to end the long and bloody conflict.

Also hanging heavy in the air was the threat of renewed violence over frustrated Palestinian aspirations, in spite of Abbas’ vow — perceived by Israeli security officials as genuine — to prevent Palestinian violence. The death on Friday of 35-year-old Issam Badram, in gunfire that erupted after rampaging Jewish settlers destroyed trees in a Palestinian grove, was the type of incident that both Palestinians and Israelis had feared would spark widespread violence.

Yet by seeking approval at a world forum overwhelmingly sympathetic to their quest, Palestinians hope to make it harder for Israel to resist already heavy global pressure to negotiate the borders of a future Palestine based on lines Israel held before capturing the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza in 1967.

“We extend our hands to the Israeli government and the Israeli people for peacemaking,” he said. “Let us build the bridges of diolague instead of checkpoints and walls of separation, and build cooperative relations based on parity and equity between two neighboring states — Palestine and Israel — instead of policies of occupation, settlement, war and eliminating the other,” he said.

It was not clear how serious Abbas was about his very public threat to dissolve his limited self-rule government, born of the landmark accords Israel and the Palestinians signed in the 1990s. Dissolution would put 150,000 Palestinians out of work and cause utter chaos. Israel, which is skeptical of such talk, would be saddled with the welfare and policing of 2.5 million unwanted Palestinian subjects.

Palestinians say they turned to the U.N. in desperation over 18 failed years of peace talks. They say they decided to reinvigorate their flagging statehood campaign by bringing it to the broadest possible international forum — the United Nations — in the hope an enhanced world status would pressure Israel to act more boldly.

Netanyahu insists his commitment to peacemaking is genuine and accuses the Palestinians of going to the U.N. specifically to avoid negotiations.

In recent weeks, international mediators have been furiously trying to piece together a formula that would let the Palestinians abandon their plan to ask the Security Council for full U.N. membership, and instead make do with asking a sympathetic General Assembly to elevate their status from permanent observer to nonmember observer state — a lesser option but one that would be widely expected and seen as still valuable to the Palestinians because of the implicit recognition of the pre-1967 borders.

It also would give the Palestinians access to international judicial bodies such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, which Israel fears would target them unfairly.

The U.S. and Israel have been pressuring Council members to either vote against the plan or abstain when it comes up for a vote. The vote would require the support of nine of the Council’s 15 members to pass, but even if the Palestinians could line up that backing, a U.S. veto is assured.

The resumption of talks seems an elusive goal, with both sides digging in to positions that have tripped up negotiations for years. Israel insists that negotiations go ahead without any preconditions. But Palestinians say they will not return to the bargaining table without assurances that Israel would halt settlement building and drop its opposition to basing negotiations on the borders it held before capturing the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza in 1967.

Israel has warned that the Palestinian appeal to the U.N. will have a disastrous effect on negotiations, which have been the cornerstone of international Mideast policy for the past two decades. Netanyahu opposes negotiations based on 1967 lines, saying a return to those frontiers would expose Israel’s heartland to rocket fire from the West Bank.

He also fears that if that principle becomes the baseline for negotiations, then Palestinians won’t settle for anything less, despite previous understandings between the Palestinians and previous Israeli governments to swap land where settlement blocs stand for Israeli territory.

Talks for all intents and purposes broke down nearly three years ago after Israel went to war in the Gaza Strip and prepared to hold national elections that ultimately propelled Netanyahu to power for a second time. A last round was launched a year ago, with the ambitious aim of producing a framework accord for a peace deal, but broke down just three weeks later after an Israeli settlement construction slowdown expired.

The U.N. recognition bid has won Abbas broad popular support at home and help him gain political ground against his main political rival, the Islamic militant Hamas movement, which violently wrested control of Gaza in 2007 and opposes the U.N. move.

Gaza’s Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, accused Abbas on Friday of relinquishing Palestinian rights by seeking recognition for a state in the pre-1967 borders. Hamas’ founding charter calls for the destruction of Israel and a state in all of the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, though some Hamas officials have suggested they would support a peace deal based on the 1967 lines.

“The Palestinian people do not beg the world for a state, and the state can’t be created through decisions and initiatives,” Haniyeh said. “States liberate their land first and then the political body can be established.”

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AP correspondent Tarek el-Tablawy contributed to this report from the United Nations.