"[T]he Palestinian Spring is here," proclaimed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in front of a large crowd of cheering supporters in Ramallah on his return from New York. His popularity skyrocketed immediately after his bold speech at the General Assembly of United Nations and his submitting the Palestinian application for United Nations membership on Friday.
Abbas defied with his bid a very powerful American, Israeli and European pressure campaign, and this made him a hero in the eyes of countless Palestinians and Arabs. Ironically, the main confrontations, even at the UN, have yet to come, and his goals there are far from accomplished. These are still nothing compared to the more important and difficult task facing him, which is to channel the popular enthusiasm of his people into political action without unleashing deadly violence.
Faced with an American promise to veto the application at the UN Security Council, Abbas has few good alternatives. According to Omar Dajani, a legal expert and adviser to the Palestinian negotiators
... in order to win more than a symbolic victory this year, the Palestinians will need to achieve one or both of the following goals:
Secure sweeping international support for their territorial claims - in particular, their right to exercise sovereignty over the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, subject only to minor and equitable negotiated revisions to the pre-1967 border, and
Obtain sufficiently broad recognition from world governments of Palestinian statehood to enable the International Criminal Court (ICC) to exercise jurisdiction to prosecute Israeli war crimes in Palestinian territory.
