That would require convincing the US, Israel’s ally, not to veto a resolution supporting membership for an independent Palestinian state, which won’t be easy.
But Riyad Mansour, the top Palestinian diplomat at the UN, said in an interview with The Associated Press that there are other options to achieve the goal through the UN.
He said September looms large for the Palestinians because “there are so many things that will converge.” First, Israel and the Palestinians agreed on President Barack Obama’s target of September 2011 for a peace agreement, a date endorsed by the European Union and much of the world. Second, the two-year program to build the infrastructure of a Palestinian state will be complete, and third, the Palestinians hope two-thirds of the 192 UN
member states will have recognized Palestine as an independent state, Mansour said.
Obama announced in September 2010, as US-brokered direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations resumed, that a peace treaty should be signed in a year, but those talks collapsed weeks later after Israel ended its freeze on building settlements.
The Palestinians insist they will not resume peace talks until Israel stops building settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — lands it captured in the 1967 Middle East war and which the Palestinians want for their future state. Israel maintains that the Palestinians should not be setting conditions for talks and that settlements didn’t stop them negotiating in the past.
“Our preference what should happen in September is to have a peace treaty with the Israelis to end the occupation to allow for our independence and our membership in the United Nations,” Mansour said.
The US has been heading efforts to restart negotiations but Mansour said the Palestinians want the Quartet — the mediating group consisting of the US, UN, European Union and Russia — to take the lead.
Mansour expressed regret that the US blocked a Quartet meeting tentatively scheduled for last Friday in Berlin to discuss, and hopefully endorse, the outlines of a peace settlement proposed by Britain, France and Germany. A US official said a Quartet meeting wouldn’t produce anything that would help restart direct talks.
But Mansour said Palestinian leaders “indicated willingness to go back to negotiations” if the Quartet agreed on the proposal by the three European countries.
It calls for an immediate halt to settlement activity, a solution to the question of Palestinian refugees, and agreement on the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of both countries and on borders before the 1967 Mideast war, with approved land swaps. It also called for security arrangements that respect Palestinian sovereignty and protect Israel’s security and prevent a resurgence of terrorism.
“We’re trying our best to open doors for negotiations,” Mansour said in the interview late Thursday. “The Israelis are choosing settlements over peace.” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said “the sooner the Palestinians agree to resume peace talks, the sooner we will all be able to take steps that will bring us closer to peace.”
The goal of establishing a Palestinian state, living in peace with Israel, “cannt state by 112 countries. Possible recognition by six others is being examined, he said, and “hopefully by September 2011 we will have 130, maybe 140 countries recognizing the state of Palestine.” That is important because UN membership not only requires a recommendation from the Security Council but approval by two-thirds of the General Assembly, or 128 countries.
“This is the end game,” Mansour said — the more countries the Palestinians have on their side, the more they can pursue independence, “whether in the Security Council or in the General Assembly or combined.” Mansour said the Palestinian preference is for Security Council action in September, backed by widespread recognitions, to “strengthen our argument” for statehood.
“We want to make it difficult for anyone to block our effort for securing membership in the Security Council,” he said.
If the US vetoes a Security Council resolution recommending statehood, there’s the option of going before the General Assembly, where there is no veto but resolutions are nonbinding.
Mansour said that among other options is a General Assembly resolution similar to that of 1947 that called for Palestine to be divided into Jewish and Arab states.
Another possibility advanced by some is “Uniting for Peace,” a General Assembly resolution that allows it to take action if it believes the Security Council has failed to head off a threat to world peace and security.
But that option would be hard to implement because it would require proving that denying the Palestinians UN membership threatens international peace and security.
