JERICHO: A year after the Palestinians went to the United Nations with a historic bid for state membership, President Mahmoud Abbas is going back with a trimmed down request for recognition.
With the quest for full membership stalled, Abbas will instead ask the General Assembly to elevate the Palestinians from observer status to that of a UN non-member state.
He is expected to officially launch the campaign after addressing the UN General Assembly on Thursday, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told journalists last week.
“We want Palestine back on the map, on the 1967 lines, with east Jerusalem as its capital, carried by 150 to 170 nations,” Erakat said.
The Palestinians have long sought to have the lines that existed before the 1967 Six Day War — when Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — as the basis for border negotiations with Israel.
To be adopted, the resolution seeking non-member status must be approved by a majority of votes from the 194 members of the General Assembly, which the Palestinians are expected to easily secure. The Palestinians say they have not abandoned last year’s bid for full UN membership, but that request remains stuck in the 15-member Security Council, where they have been unable to win over a majority.
The United States, a veto-wielding Council member, has made clear its opposition to the bid, which Israel has also vehemently denounced.
But in the year since the much-hyped request, Abbas has seen key assets — including international praise for his government’s institution-building efforts, and a reconciliation deal with rival group Hamas — come under threat.
And that has made the initially unappealing prospect of non-state membership through the General Assembly increasingly attractive.
Membership would give the Palestinians access to international organisations like the World Health Organisation and perhaps the International Criminal Court.
The renewed bid for expanded UN membership comes at a difficult time for Abbas’s government, which controls the West Bank, but not the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the rival Islamist Hamas movement.
AFP
