Palestinians to submit revised statehood bid for UN vote

The Palestinians are pressing for a UN Security Council vote this week on a resolution that would call for the recognition of a Palestinian state and an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines by 2017.

A resolution with such a timetable is almost certain to be rejected by the Security Council — either by a failure to get the minimum nine “yes” votes required or by a veto from the United States, Israel’s closest ally which insists there must be a negotiated solution to the conflict.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said a draft resolution would be submitted to the Security Council by Jordan on Monday. A vote could be set for Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest.

Jordan’s UN Ambassador, the Arab representative on the Security Council, has said repeatedly that Jordan wants a consensus resolution agreed to by all 15 council members.

Erekat indicated on Friday to the Al-Arabiya news channel that that the Palestinian leadership has introduced eight amendments to the draft resolution that was submitted to the Security Council by Jordan on December 18.

Erekat wouldn’t specify the exact changes made to the document, mentioning only the insertion of a clause defining East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state and a demand to release Palestinian prisoners according to a fixed timetable.

On Saturday, a Hamas official charged that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has not consulted his government’s partner Hamas on the  draft resolution

The accusation from Hamas deputy political chief Moussa Abu Marzouk came as other Palestinian officials also panned the statehood bid for not going far enough to secure Palestinian rights.

“It is not enough to say that eight points have been amended in the paper submitted to the Security Council,” Abu Marzouk wrote on his Facebook page. “Our Palestinian people must know what these amended points are, and why the provisional leadership framework wasn’t summoned to approve the proposed resolution. Who submitted the previous resolution, which relinquished the rights and principles of the Palestinian people? Whoever did so should be held to account.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (R) signs a request to join 15 United Nations-linked and other international treaties at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday, April 1, 2014 (photo credit: AFP/Abbas Monami)

On December 22, Abu Marzouk complained that the original draft resolution submitted to the UN was “different from one presented to the national and Islamic factions” and included “many compromises on our national rights and principles.”

“Abbas has submitted a shameful document to the Security Council, void of all our rights and with no one knowing its contents, and they want us to stand behind it!” he told labor union leaders in Gaza Saturday.

Hamas and Fatah have been at odds over diplomatic issues since the swearing in of a national-unity government in June, officially ending a seven-year political schism between the two movements.