PLO: New Palestinian U.N. Bid to be Submitted this Year
A resolution seeking enhanced U.N. observer status for the Palestinians will be submitted later this year after the U.S. presidential election, a Palestinian official said on Friday.
"We have begun consultations on the format of the text that will be presented to the General Assembly to upgrade the Palestinian status to an observer state status," Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, told reporters.
"Most people are looking at the completion of consultations before the end of the year. There are others who have suggested that we target the 29th of November because it's the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People."
"The president said openly that he is not going to present it before the American elections," on November 6, she added.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas on Thursday formally announced that the Palestinians would ask the General Assembly to grant them "superobserver" status that could give them access to U.N. institutions and agencies.
The announcement, made in his address to the General Assembly, came a year after Abbas asked the Security Council to grant the Palestinians full member status, a request that has been stuck in the council ever since.
"We lost the momentum of last year, very clearly, at the Security Council bid," Ashrawi said.
"We have reached a critical point. Israel has been allowed to undermine the two-state solution to the point where this is a last-ditch effort to try to rescue the chances of peace and the two-state solution by the Palestinians."
Direct peace talks have been on hold since late September 2010, with the Palestinians insisting on an Israeli settlement freeze before resuming negotiations and the Israelis calling for talks without preconditions.
With all due respects to Mahmud Abbas, and I do have respect for him, unless and until he sits down with the Israelis, he can do whatever he wants on the international scene, and nothing tangible will come of it.
It is time that he overcame his misplaced belief that the world community will establish his independent state for him and his people.
Only by sitting down, Talking face to face, without preconditions will things move. Perhaps what is needed is a "Camp David" style conference.
If only this were to happen I'm sure that by the next General Assembly session next year, Israel would be one of the first countries to sponser a full membership for Palestine.