Summary:  The Palestinian Authority is seeking a declaration of statehood within the 1967 lines at the United Nations in September 2011. This move will not help a two-state solution. Here are six reasons to oppose the move:

- Direct negotiations are the only way to statehood: Face-to-face direct negotiations with Israel, involving tough compromises by all parties (including the Palestinians), are the only realistic way to achieve Palestinian statehood which is viable and which can be sustained. There needs to be agreement (and compromises) between Israel and the Palestinians on mutual recognition, on security guarantees, on an end to violence and incitement, on settlements, on borders, on Jerusalem, on refugees, on day-to-day trade and other interchange, and on many other issues.  The UN declaration route simply evades all of this. It provides statehood without responsibility. It is a largely symbolic move which lacks pragmatism and realism. Yes, negotiations have not yet produced a long-term peace agreement, but that indicates that the parties need to redouble their efforts, not abandon the negotiated route   

- Reinforcing Palestinian intransigence and maximalist positions: A UN declaration of statehood will actually reinforce Palestinian intransigence, because it will form a maximalist position on many core issues from which the Palestinians will then refuse to budge.  UN statehood will also provide a platform for the Palestinians to attack Israel and attempt to isolate it globally by legal actions and boycott campaigns.  In a renowned article in the New York Times in May 2011 Mahmoud Abbas was open about this as a goal.  These strategies will make a negotiated two-state solution still harder to achieve

- Circumventing international law and diplomacy: UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 provide the well-established international legal framework for a two-state solution, and mandate face-to-face direct negotiations. Israeli withdrawal from territory and the final status of the West Bank are linked to a negotiated peace agreement. But the proposed UN declaration circumvents these Resolutions.  Furthermore, many of the key players in the international community which could help the process of creating a two-state solution – the US and many European states - oppose the declaration, so it flies in the face of both international law, and effective international diplomacy

- Endorsing Palestinian rejection of the national rights of the Jewish people:  The current leadership of the Palestinian people – both Fatah and Hamas - reject the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state, and they also openly demand that no Jews should be permitted to live in the future state of Palestine.  Both of these positions are regressive and damaging, but by implication a UN declaration of independence would endorse these positions and reward them

- Taking an artificially narrow view of being “ready” for statehood: The conclusions of international organisations like the World Bank and the IMF declaring that the Palestinians are “ready for statehood” focus only on  economic and administrative criteria. Unfortunately, both organisations disregarded diplomatic, legal, and security factors in reaching their reported conclusions. All of these are vital factors, and their conclusions can therefore not be used as an endorsement of a UN declaration of independence

- Creating false expectations on the ground and a trigger for violence: Finally, a UN declaration is very likely to create expectations of “change on the ground” among ordinary Palestinians which simply cannot be met, because of the symbolic nature of the move.  The statehood declaration could result in a surge of spontaneous Palestinian protest and violence in the territories, leading to the loss of the everyday social and economic gains which have been achieved in recent years