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Latest update: 27/09/2011
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict - Mahmoud Abbas - United Nations
Palestinian envoys vie for votes on UN membership bid
Palestinian representatives began vying Monday for UN Security Council votes approving their formal application for full UN membership but face a certain veto by the United States. A final vote is not expected for weeks.
By News Wires (text)
AFP - Palestinian envoys are battling for UN Security Council votes to back their effort to win full UN membership, while the United States is using its diplomatic big guns to make the bid fail.
The Security Council held its first meeting to discuss the application on Monday and is to meet again Wednesday to formally send the request made by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to a membership committee.
The Palestinian campaign faces an uphill struggle as the United States has vowed to veto any resolution backing their application. No vote at the 15-member council is expected for several weeks however and frenzied lobbying has started.
On top of campaigning at the UN, the Palestinians are to send high level delegations to council members Bosnia, Gabon and Nigeria in a bid to win backing, Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, told reporters.
The United States and Israel, which insist that only direct negotiations can produce an accord, are lobbying furiously for council members to oppose or abstain in the resolution.
If the resolution does not get nine votes in favor it will fail and the United States will not have to use its veto.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised the Palestinian bid with Lebanon's Prime Minister Nijab Mikati at the UN headquarters before Monday's meeting, US officials said. Lebanon holds the council presidency in September and has backed the Palestinian bid.
She also raised the case Monday with Colombia's Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin.
Nine of the 15 council members already recognize the Palestinian state, but diplomats say the Palestinians will struggle to get nine votes.
Only China, Russia, Lebanon, India, South Africa and Brazil have declared themselves certain to vote for the Palestinian bid.
"This is an exercise in which there will be tremendous pressure on members of the Security Council, but we trust in our friends," Mansour said.
Despite the US opposition, Mansour called on the Security Council to "synchronize itself with history" and approve Palestinian membership.
US President Barack Obama told Abbas publicly and privately at the UN last week that there could be no Palestinian state without an accord with the Israelis reached through direct talks.
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The diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East -- the United States, Russia, European Union and United Nations -- launched a new bid to resume talks after Abbas made his historic application, setting a target of an accord by the end of 2012.
Germany's Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle gave strong support to the Quartet initiative in his speech to the UN General Assembly on Monday.
"Two states existing peacefully side by side are possible. However, this can only be achieved through negotiations," he said.
"The confrontation of words here in New York must not be allowed to lead to an escalation in violence in the Middle East," he added, calling for "direct negotiations without delay!"
China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi also added to the long list of international calls for new talks in his speech to the UN assembly.
The Quartet has called for talks to start within a month, proposals from both sides in three months, major progress in six months and a final deal by the end of 2012.
Abbas, riding a wave of popular support in the occupied territories, says he is ready for talks but first there must be a "complete halt" to Israeli settlement building in the occupied territories.
Israel's Netanyahu has said he wants talks without conditions and is refusing to halt the new settlements.
A senior UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on the sidelines of the Clinton-Mikati talks that he saw "little hope" for new talks.
If the Security Council bid fails, the Palestinians are expected to go to the UN General Assembly to seek observer state membership of the UN. They would almost certainly get a majority in favor.
France has called for the Palestinians to be given observer state membership in a bid to defuse the diplomatic clash.
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Comments (8)
NO to Palestinian Statehood
The Palestinians have shown no signs of amicability toward Israel. They are constantly spewing out their hate speech to Israel, sporadically bombing and killing innocent people including children and threatening to push them out to the sea. Those countries who say yes to Palestinian Statehood are false and without heart. I believe Israel's neighboring countries are jealous of her fruitful and productive land God has given her.
This Palestina
Given a free state to the palestina is the beginning of crisis, what is happening to history, the land the palestina are claiming is given to Israel by the Almighty God, Palestina are immigrant on the land they are claiming to decalare a state of their own. Well, well, I hope the United Nation will look into this. Dont legalise terorisim, given them a statte is legalizing terrorrism.
To Howard J Peters
settlement are not acceptable every where in the world. Hope you know that!
In the other hand, no one can negotiate with Israel as they continuously supporting new settlements in Palestinian land. after more the 10 years of negotiation, Israel didn't give back an inch to Palestine!
Who can negotiate with a state who do not accept any UN resolution?
each time we (as European) criticize Israel, they pointing us as antisemitic! how can we discuss with Israel?
Palestinian state bid
I support the Palestinian bid but it appears like building the house from the roof. Hamas and Iran refuse to recognize the state of Israel. I wonder how such states can co-exist peacefully without first ironing out the areas of conflict. The UN is familiar with the issues. If the security concerns of Israel are not taken into account before the formal recognition of the state of Palestine, the UN Security Council would have created more problem than solution.
Work & Devolpment World
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Palestine UN - bid
Abbas and his cohorts have no right to call Israel an apartheid state when they are effectively forbidding the settlement of Jews into what will be part of their (Palestine) lands. The Arabs in Israel are the freest of all Arab Moslems anywhere, to practice their religion in their places of worship than in any other country in the world. The Palestine nation will be much less forgiving to their own people, when the time comes for reconciliation. There is no way that Jews will be allowed to enter their neighbour's land and there will always be a form of taught aggression within their schools and their religious teachings!
There will NEVER be any way for Palestine to gain a truly recognized independent state other than with peace and true intercommunication with ALL of its neighbours!
If a peace was negotiated between Jew and Arab and Arab and Jew and love replaced hate among their followers then there would no doubt be a strong union of States in that region as brotherly cousins walked together down streets paved with 'gold' under the canopy (Chuppah) of true friendship!
COULD THIS HAPPEN?
You answer that!
Palestine UN - bid
Abbas and his cohorts have no right to call Israel an apartheid state when they are effectively forbidding the settlement of Jews into what will be part of their (Palestine) lands. The Arabs in Israel are the freest of all Arab Moslems anywhere, to practice their religion in their places of worship than in any other country in the world. The Palestine nation will be much less forgiving to their own people, when the time comes for reconciliation. There is no way that Jews will be allowed to enter their neighbour's land and there will always be a form of taught aggression within their schools and their religious teachings!
There will NEVER be any way for Palestine to gain a truly recognized independent state other than with peace and true intercommunication with ALL of its neighbours!
If a peace was negotiated between Jew and Arab and Arab and Jew and love replaced hate among their followers then there would no doubt be a strong union of States in that region as brotherly cousins walked together down streets paved with 'gold' under the canopy (Chuppah) of true friendship!
COULD THIS HAPPEN?
You answer that!
A new totally unbiased UN can make the world better peaceful!
Only 8 of the world body's 15 members will support the bid!
And later on even if statehood is granted, there will still be no peace between two warring groups of same origin, fighting blindly for centuries over nonsense religious reasons or ''selfish small minded issues" -with which the Creator has no link now and never ever had before too; unless with totally honest, unlike the past, negotiations and truly meant commitments for infinite time both sides agree to live side by side like one country- a piece of land divided in south and north-two parts in the middle! Time is coming for border lifting and perhaps these foolish two: Israel and Palestine will feel ashamed later when e.g. Bangladesh and India will be lifting their borders to become one piece of land again (Still one piece but two in human minds only because of unfruitful personal ambitions of a few guys in control of public emotion!
Now, where are those so self-claimed religious old-political mercy-makers?
Everybody better listen carefully to the advice and requests made by the Great Mr. Obama!
One can understand the capacities of the Lions and the Tigers now, as they are falling one after another; the time will start telling soon about the order of these pieces of lands: Algeria, Sudan, Somalia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia etc. There will be no bloodshed but the heads will be ousted in a evolutionary chain reactions because the older Crocodile, surviving for centuries out of sight, is now transparently in the control of North-American power and no one has to confusingly wonder anymore about the whereabouts of the giant Crocodile and its eggs or wasting time arguing about which one came first on earth? The egg or the Crocodile?
The fools have no idea that the digital technology and money are now more powerfully effective than guns and there won't be World Wars anymore, so the businesses of War weapons are bound to go bankrupt! Oil crisis, global warming etc. are nothing but business propaganda.
The days are not too far when the mercy-maker: religious-type businessmen themselves have to start begging for mercy from UN power, if UN itself can secure its own position on the foundation of possible global unanimous support.
Shahislam
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