Palestinians to push ahead with bid for UN membership despite pressure

Statehood would give Palestinians greater leverage in fighting Israeli occupation, says Mahmoud Abbas

guardian.co.uk, Harriet Sherwood in Ramallah, Thursday 8 September 2011

Mahmoud Abbas says the Palestinians will go ahead with their bid fo
r UN membership even though 'we know that many countries do not agree
with us'. Photograph: Mohamad Torokman/Reuters

The Palestinian president has insisted that last-ditch diplomatic efforts to avert a collision at the United Nations over the Palestinians' bid for statehood came too late and they would forge ahead despite being "under pressure from the world".

"Whatever the pressures, we're going to the UN to submit our application for the membership. We know that many countries do not agree with us, do not like this idea, but we will go there," Mahmoud Abbas said at his presidential compound in Ramallah.

He said he would only reconsider his bid for recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN if a return to negotiations with the Israelis on the basis of the pre-1967 borders and a total freeze on settlement building was offered.

But the US and Europe had been too slow in harnessing diplomatic energy to the issue, he said. "To be frank with you, they came too late. They wasted all the time from the beginning of this year … til today or yesterday, they wasted all this time. Now when they come here to tell us, okay we have this idea or this package and don't go to the UN, we will not accept it."

The Palestinian delegation would arrive in New York on 19 September and would submit its application to be accepted as a member of the world body in the following days. "Everything is ready, everything is in hand," he said.

The application would first be submitted to the security council, whose approval is required for full membership, despite the US saying it would veto such a move. The Palestinians may then seek recognition short of member status at the general assembly, which needs a two-thirds majority.

Pressure over their chosen course was intense. "Everyone is asking us to do or not to do, to change our minds," Abbas said. The Palestinians did not want confrontation, "neither with America nor with anyone else", but "there will be confrontation".

Statehood, said Abbas, would give the Palestinians greater leverage in fighting the Israeli occupation. "It means we will be a state under occupation. Israel now says [East Jerusalem and the West Bank] is a disputed area and they can build settlements everywhere. They do not recognise that this is Palestinian territory. When we are a state … we will negotiate accordingly with the Israelis, of course with the support of the UN."

The Palestinians would argue at the UN that they were "the only people still under occupation, not just after 63 years but more than five centuries – since the Ottomans to the British Mandate and now to the Israelis. We want our independence."

Israel fears that membership of the UN would also allow the Palestinians to bring cases against it at the international criminal court. Abbas said such a move would only be necessary if Israel acted in violation of international law.

"You are obliged to go [to the ICC] because somebody takes your rights, attacks you, or whatever it is," he said. "We don't want to go to the ICC for nothing. Tell the Israelis not to attack the Palestinians, and we will not go there. When you see the settlers every day burning mosques, cutting [down] trees – who prevents them?"

The threat from Congress to cut financial aid to the Palestinians if they pursue their UN strategy was a problem, he said. "We think the US is an honest broker. If they cut their aid to us, then it will be a different situation."

He did not want his "good relations" with the US to be jeopardised, he said. "I want to keep my relations. But if they don't want that, it's up to them."

The Palestinian leadership had given strict instructions to avoid violent confrontation with Israeli security forces in the coming weeks and months he said. "From our side there will be no confrontation, no chaos. I don't want any friction between us and the Israelis."

Palestinian security forces had been told to avoid provocation. But, he said, "we are afraid that the Israelis will send the settlers and the dogs to attack the Palestinians".

On Thursday, olive trees were uprooted, cars set ablaze and a mosque vandalised near Nablus, according to Palestinian officials.

As Palestinian officials spoke of mounting pressure from the US, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, said his country was "in a battle to stem the tide" in world opinion.

In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv, he said: "This is a diplomatic endeavour against all odds. I am trying, literally down to the last moment, to persuade the ambassadors of UN member countries that this unilateral course of action by the Palestinians won't lead to peace and won't lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, but only to violence and bloodshed."

The Palestinians had an automatic majority in the general assembly, he said. "It is clear to me that we can't win the vote." Israel was instead trying to enlarge its "moral minority" at the world body.