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Ramallah:
The Palestinian Authority (PA) will present the UN Security
Council (UNSC) with a draft of a resolution declaring statehood in
the coming days, a senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said in a press
statement that the resolution is scheduled to be filed when Bosnia
takes the UNSC’s presidency in January.
Erekat added that the Palestinian leadership is “waiting for
Bosnia to take the presidency of the Security Council.”
The Palestinian negotiator expressed
his hope that the US would not veto the move.
He added that Australia, Japan, Korea and New Zealand would
recognize the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.
Erekat said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will leave
for Brazil on Wednesday to lay the cornerstone of the Palestinian
Embassy there on Jan. 1. Brazil recognized the Palestinian state
on the 1967 borders in early December.
According to Erekat “the Israeli government is witnessing an
international isolation that it hasn’t witnessed before.”
According to other reports the Palestinians will submit a proposal
calling for a Security Council resolution to halt Israeli
settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Wednesday that
Palestinians expect wider recognition of their statehood in the
coming year and it will mean more than the mere “Facebook state”
predicted by an Israeli minister.
Fayyad said recognition by many countries would “enshrine” the
Palestinians’ right to a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, which Israel captured along with East Jerusalem in a 1967
war.
Seventeen years of peace efforts had failed to deliver this
promise, he told reporters.
The current Israeli coalition’s stated
commitment to a two-state solution could not be relied on “given
the erosion that has taken place," he said.
Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador announced recognition of
Palestinian statehood in the past month. Chile, Mexico, Peru and
Nicaragua are reported to be weighing the same move.
However, the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that
the US and Europe are straying from the idea of unilaterally
establishing a Palestinian state.
The European Union has staved off Palestinian pressure in favor of
waiting until an “appropriate” time, while the US House of
Representatives passed a resolution this month saying only peace
talks could set such a process in motion.
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