Palestinians’ UN gambit under US veto threat Monday, 12 September 2011 01:29

By Joby Warrick and Joel Greenberg

A series of last-ditch diplomatic initiatives have failed to deflect a Palestinian effort to seek a formal statehood declaration at the United Nations, dashing White House officials’ hopes of avoiding a politically painful US veto at the UN Security Council.

Two of the Obama’s administration’s top Middle East advisers travelled home from the region on Thursday after two days of largely fruitless meetings aimed at averting a UN showdown two weeks from now, administration officials acknowledged. The visits followed an appeal by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who telephoned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday to urge him to change course.

Palestinian officials rejected the US overtures on Thursday, saying that neither diplomacy nor threats, including a vow by key congressional leaders to cut off US aid, would deter a plan to seek formal statehood recognition at an upcoming Security Council session.

“We told them that we don’t want a confrontation, neither with the Americans nor with anybody else,” Abbas told reporters in Ramallah. “They are our friends. We don’t want a confrontation, but let us express our ideas, our hope. We are a people without hope now.”

The Obama administration has warned that it would veto the move, putting the White House at odds with its stated support of political rights for Arabs and an independent homeland for Palestinians.

With diplomatic efforts in tatters, US officials and Middle East experts said they were at a loss for how a US veto could be avoided.

“It’s difficult to be overly optimistic, to put it mildly,” said former Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, who until this year was the Obama administration’s special envoy on Middle East peace, offering a grim assessment Thursday before a Georgetown University panel on resolving the impasse.

With the peace process stalled since last September, Palestinian officials decided earlier this year to move their quest for statehood to the world body. Abbas is expected to make a formal request for recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state at the Security Council as early as September 21.

If the initiative is blocked, as expected, by a US veto, Palestinian officials say they will appeal to the General Assembly, where no single nation can block action and where sympathy for the Palestinian cause is widespread.

The General Assembly cannot recognise sovereignty but probably would support a weaker measure upgrading the Palestinian Authority’s status from “observer” to “non-member state,” on par with the Vatican. That would clear the way for the Palestinians to join UN bodies and conventions, and it could enable them to pursue claims against Israel in the International Criminal Court.

Although the White House officially supports statehood, it opposes what administration officials argue would be a merely symbolic gesture that could set back peace efforts and do little to help Palestinians. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Thursday repeated the US veto threat, saying the UN bid would “make it harder to get back to talks.”

“We are seeking a result in the region that is consensual between the two parties, that is lasting, that is durable, that leads to security,” she told reporters.

A senior administration official involved in Middle East policy discussions acknowledged that a UN clash appeared all but inevitable after unsuccessful talks between Abbas and two senior US diplomats: special Middle East envoy David Hale and White House adviser Dennis Ross. The two met with Israeli and Palestinian officials during a two-day visit that ended late Wednesday.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said the White House had reached out to about 100 governments around the world in an effort to persuade them to oppose the Palestinian bid.

“We don’t think this is good for anyone: not for Israel, certainly not for the Palestinian people,” the official said. He noted that, even as the US diplomatic initiative floundered, efforts continued under the auspices of the “quartet” (the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia) to work out a deal to resume direct negotiations. “We’re not finished yet,” the official said.

Abbas, speaking to reporters in Ramallah, said the Palestinians remain committed to peace negotiations, but he vowed that the UN effort will proceed even if a formula for resuming talks is found. “I don’t think it’s workable,” he said of efforts by international mediators to come up with a diplomatic package to head off the UN bid. “They came too late.”

He added, “We will go to the UN, and we will return back to talk” with the Israelis. Abbas sought to allay concerns that a UN vote in favor of Palestinian statehood would lead to unrest in the West Bank and possible confrontations with Israeli troops and settlers.

“From our side, no confrontations, no chaos,” he said.

WP-Bloomberg