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Palestinians: We Will Seek Full UN Membership on September 23
Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki says Palestinians will submit request to Security Council next Friday, ending speculation over whether they would risk U.S. veto; Netanyahu plans to address General Assembly on same day.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Thursday that the Palestinians will submit a bid for full membership at the United Nations Security Council on September 23, but said that they would be open to other suggestions.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Arab League meeting in Doha, May 28, 2011.
(Photo by: AFP ) The remarks by Malki put an end to speculation that the Palestinians might avoid a showdown with the United States by sidestepping the Security Council and going directly to the UN General Assembly to seek a lesser status of a non-member observer.
Malki said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will personally submit the Palestinian request for membership to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after addressing the General Assembly on the afternoon of Sept. 23. In the meantime, he said the Palestinians would listen to suggested alternatives.
"We will see if anyone carries with him or her any credible offer that will allow us to look into it seriously and to be discussed in the Palestinian leadership. Otherwise, on the 23rd at 12:30, the president will submit the application," Malki told foreign journalists in Ramallah.
The U.S. does not wield veto power in the General Assembly, and a Palestinian bid there would be expected to win majority approval.
The Palestinians will likely still end up at the General Assembly with scaled-back ambitions, however, if the U.S. exercises its veto power in the Security Council as expected.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu announced Thursday that he plans on flying to New York on Wednesday to attend the discussions, and to address the General Assembly on Friday, the same day the Palestinians plan to submit their bid for full membership to the Security Council.
The U.S. has been on a furious diplomatic offensive to try to keep the Palestinians from going to the UN in their statehood quest, saying negotiations are the only way to produce a Palestinian state.
Israel also opposes the UN move, which the Palestinians launched after concluding that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations - stalled for nearly three years - were not going to produce any breakthroughs at this time.
Al-Malki's comments came as U.S. and other international envoys were shuttling back and forth between Jerusalem and Ramallah in an effort to avert a diplomatic crisis over the Palestinians' UN bid.
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13 Comments so far
Show AllGo for it Al-Malki, after all you have nothing, zilch, zero right now and everything to gain so whatever happens what is there to lose? AT the very least you'll flush the US out so that the world sees just how duplicitous they've been for how many decades is it?
I note that today the Israelis demolished a Mosque in the village of Broqeen, Salfeet in order to steal more land so that they can expand the illegal industrial complex of Barkan. This behaviour must stop. Statehood will go a long way to achieve that.
please allow these people to be free...
So the Palestinian are going to force the US into taking one of 4 positions:
1) Acceptance of a Palestinian state with the US voting for it
2) Abstention allowing it to go forward
3) Abstention while getting an ally to veto it to save face
4) Veto, where we just reaffirm that the US doesn't care about justice.
The MSM seems to be focused on #4, but I'd bet the administration is focused on #3.
Since the Obama administration has become so adept at caving when under the spotlight we may very well end up with #1 or #2.
If #3 or #4 occur, the Palestinians can play the "poor, sad us" card to the General Assembly for non-member nation status.
I don't think #3 is likely. As Israel's b*tches, Oblahblah and Killary know full well, especially after this week's special election in NYC, that anything less than overt and unconditional support for Israel will be viewed as antisemitic betrayal by a solid majority of America's Jewish community. So an American abstention at the UN simply isn't an option.
President is hardly the author of the a pro-Israel policy of the United States. Isreal owns Washington, and has done since Jimmy Carter was President.
Going to be #4. Obama has some political capital on talking Palestine out of it. If they don't, then he is not going to back down either.
Since israel, for all practical purposes, does not recognize the un, i fail to understand why they are getting their panties in such a wad.
Scratch a schmuck, uncover a nebbish.
Please explain.
It's ironic that Israel came into existence itself by declaring itself a state.
Any objective person who studies the history can see the whole Israeli government game plan is to wear down the Palestinians and squeeze them out of the area through as much oppression as world opinion will allow them to exercise. There is no real desire for a sincere solution and the Palestinians know this.
That's why Israel and the US are desperate for Palestine not to have greater status, as it sidesteps their power to continue the stalemate where the Palestinians live a open-air prisoners in their own land, in land that the whole world expects to be a nation of Palestine someday, everybody but Israel.
The peace process must get out of the control of parties whose plan is to squeeze the other out completely. The Palestinians have been accused of such an intent but have no power for it and the ones actually acting out this intention, the US and Israel, will never solve the problem. It's a job for the international community as a whole
Yes you hit the nail on the head all right, but I want to add to your "It's a job for the international community as a whole " - to support the Palestinian people-. At the moment they are being diced and sliced not only by Israel, the US, but also by the PA and Abbas, who represents no-one, and the PLO who have no mandate either. The only "representative" organization at the moment is Hamas, and the "international community" as they are euphemistically called, have ignored the democratic will of the people of Palestine and continue to call them "terrorists".
The necessity of side-lining the Zionist racist fascists in Washington and Tel Aviv, and applying international law, is long over due. At the moment we are dealing with bullies with WMD, nothing to do with the principles of the UN charter or fundamental human rights.
Self determination and the right of return are fundamental rights of the Palestinian people and if American Zionists cannot handle it and prefer to support a racist terrorist regime of war criminals then they should be shown to be doing so and be judged accordingly. Name and shame.
karlbaba:
You hit the nail on the head. Anyone who thinks that the years of on again off again negotiations have been in good faith on the Israeli/US side is kidding themselves. Attrition is what it is, and always has been all about.
The Palestinians will get a state only out of fear and not through any negotiations or concessions on their part. This is because the major European powers are struggling with their own Muslim population and would rather not have them rioting in the streets yet again.
The Palestinians had plenty of chances to be free and wasted them all. They didn't care when 2/3 of Palestine became Jordan, then called Trans-Jordan in 1922. Why? Because it was still Arab land...and as long as it was still Arab land they didn't care which Arabs ruled it. But since what was left became a Jewish state, the non-Muslim hatred arose and only the remainder of the land was referred to by the Arabs as "Palestine".