The UNSC's responsibility for Middle East peace

07.22.2009 | Haaretz
By Henry Siegman

The international community may finally be beginning to register the utter futility of decades-long expectations that an Israeli government would agree to a fair and workable peace agreement, one that would end the four-decade subjugation and denial of the Palestinian people’s national and individual rights.

One hopes that is the significance of the proposal by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who suggested that the UN Security Council assume responsibility for establishing a Palestinian state by a certain deadline if the parties have not reached an agreement. The Security Council would then set the borders of Israel and a new Palestinian state, and formulate parameters to resolve the other permanent status issues - Jerusalem, refugees and security.