“Whatever the pressures are, I think we are going to the UN . . . this month to submit our application for membership of the UN,” he told foreign journalists late on Thursday. The Palestinian president said he was not looking for “confrontation” with the US or Israel, but conceded the two allies could end up imposing a “boycott” or “sanctions” on the Palestinian Authority as a result of the UN move.
US diplomats are in the region in a last-ditch attempt to get Palestinian and Israeli leaders back to the negotiating table – and so prevent a divisive vote at the UN later this month. Mr Abbas made clear, however, that he would agree to a new round of peace talks only after a UN vote: “We will go to the UN and then we will return back to talks,” he said.
In comments that are likely to heighten Israeli concerns over the diplomatic move, the president also raised the possibility of launching legal action against Israeli officials and soldiers at the International Criminal Court following the vote at the UN. “I don’t want to go to the ICC”, Mr Abbas said. But, he added, the Palestinians would be “obliged” to go to the ICC should they face attacks from Israel in the future. “Tell the Israelis not to attack the Palestinians, and we won’t go there,” he said.
Mr Abbas also implied that UN acceptance of Palestinian statehood would make it easier to put pressure on Israel to end occupation of the West Bank. “When we are a state, we will be a state under occupation . . . and we will talk accordingly and negotiate accordingly.” His comments came amid mounting diplomatic tension over a Palestinian plan to obtain a UN vote later this month in support of statehood.
Diplomats and officials say this could happen – as suggested by Mr Abbas – through a formal request to the UN Security Council to accept Palestine as a full member state. However, the US has already vowed to veto such an application, which means the application is certain to fail.
Separately, the Palestinians could ask the UN General Assembly to upgrade their status from that of a non-member “observer entity” to that of a non-member “observer state”. They could make this move at the same time as asking for full membership as a state. Mr Abbas is, in any case, expected to address the UN General Assembly on September 23.
The UN push reflects growing Palestinian frustration with the failure of the peace process, as well as their deep mistrust of the Israeli government. Mr Abbas said the most recent round of peace talks with the Israeli prime minister, held last year, had been fruitless. Benjamin Netanyahu, he said, had refused to discuss any issue other than Israel’s security needs, and demanded Israel be allowed to station troops in the West Bank for 40 years.
Israel and the US, along with several European states, are opposed to the Palestinian UN campaign, arguing that the any move to upgrade the Palestinians’ status will undermine prospects for peace talks. Mr Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have warned the Palestinians against making what they see as a “unilateral” move outside the framework of peace talks.
Mr Abbas dismissed that criticism: “This is not unilateral action. Unilateral is what Israelis do when they build settlements [in the occupied West Bank].”
● A senior Israeli military official says the air force has deployed a special unit of unmanned surveillance aircraft along its long, porous border with Egypt after militants crossed the frontier and killed eight Israelis last month. The official says the drones are monitoring both sides of the 250-km border, though the aircraft are flying only inside Israeli airspace. Israel has also sent more troops closer to the border.
Officials have grown more concerned about security in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula after Hosni Mubarak was removed as Egyptian president in February.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity under military guidelines.
By Tobias Buck taken from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54927c4e-da46-11e0-bc99-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1XSoyKv9k
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