It looks as if the Palestinian Authority, aided and abetted by the UN, is on a fast track to declaring statehood in September this year.

The BBC reports :

The government in the West Bank is largely ready to govern a Palestinian state, the United Nations has said.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has successfully built some institutions and public services required for a future state, the UN said in a report.

But it warned that the PA’s efforts could only go so far without resolving its conflict with Israel and the division with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

The report comes a day ahead of a meeting of Western donors in Brussels.

“In six areas where the UN is most engaged, governmental functions are now sufficient for a functioning government of a state,” said the report released by Robert Serry, the UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process (Unsco).

For a good analysis of the UN report and its lack of balance the Elder of Ziyon is worth a read here.

Israel will do its very best to stop this from happening. It can also take its own unilateral actions as a form of reprisal, and the Elder and the BBC describe some of these possibilities.

However, as far as I know, no-one has seen the obvious flaw in the Palestinians declaring a state, presumably within the so-called 1967 borders.

By declaring a state within whatever territorial borders they and their backers deem to be the correct ones, this amounts to a de facto acceptance of Israel within the 1967 borders. Let’s forget about the issue of settlements for a minute.

What will happen is that Israel will not recognise the state but a majority in the UN probably will, as there is a built in anti-Israel majority at the UN.

So we will have a putative Palestine, with Gaza hanging like a severed limb and only nominally part of this state.

We will have hundreds of thousands of Israelis who will be living inside this state and whose fate and property will immediately cause a conflagration.

But most importantly, and here is the crux, we will have the right-of-returners, several million Palestinians, who will STILL claim their home is in Israel even though they now have a state of their own.

The whole idea of the Palestinian Right of Return, which does not actually exist in law, was to undermine Israel by flooding it with Palestinians, changing the demographic balance and then joining with the West Bank and Gaza to create the River-to-the-Sea version of Palestine which has always been the aim of the PLO, Fatah, Hamas and just about everyone else in the region.

So what will then be the status of these so-called refugees? Suddenly they are Palestinian citizens. They will no longer have an excuse for remaining in camps. Or will we have the bizarre situation where a Palestinian state refuses to grant citizenship to Palestinians?

Declaring a de facto state which is not the result of an agreement between the two parties is an interesting move. The question to ask is, if you can do it now, why not in 1947 or 1949? Why not accept Ehud Barak’s or Ehud Olmert’s offers made since 2000? why wage bloody war for more than 60 years? Why did so many have to die?

If the Palestinians, in a coup de théâtre, tear up UN resolutions, shred peace accords and fold their arms, Israel will be off the hook. Two can play at that game. Israel might annex all the settlements along the Green Line or even the entire West Bank.

Far from being an enforced peace, it’s a recipe for war.

If it does happen, it’s a game changer. All bets are off. Any action by Israel is possible. It alters the status of the Territories and those living within it.

So why are so many countries prepared to recognise Palestine.

The answer is  that they do not recognise or care for the rights of Israelis. It would be an act of international bullying.

And I am absolutely certain that there will be no end to the call for a Right of Return, which the UN should once and for all repudiate. There will be no end to Hamas. There will be no end to Hizbollah. No terrorist or Islamist will suddenly recognise Israel.

Will the Arab League call it quits and declare the conflict over and final borders decided? Will Iran accept Israel?l

It’s ironic that the UN which gave the Arabs a chance of an independent state in 1947 and then stood by whilst Israel was attacked again and again in order to destroy it utterly, can now, with a straight face, say that Palestine is almost ready for statehood.

The UN  did say, however, that the conflict must be resolved first.

So, in the end, will it be a Black September, or merely another ploy to delegitimise Israel which gains some purchase but is just a loss leader for the Palestinians?

We still have a few months to find out.