RAMALLAH – A senior Palestinian official Monday said that the Palestinian leadership started consultations with several parties to formulate a draft resolution to the UN for the recognition of Palestine as a non-member state. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said that the Palestinian leadership “started consultations with the Arab Group at the UN and the international geopolitical groups to formulate the draft resolution and to set up the date for the vote on the Palestinian bid.” “The Palestinian decision to apply to the UN does not contradict with resuming the peace talks (with Israel)”, Erekat said after separate meetings with US Consul General Michael Ratney, British Consul General Vincent Fean and Denmark's representative to the Palestinian Authority Lars Adam Rehof in the West Bank city of Jericho. The Palestinian negotiator said that the leadership's move is based on the “international law, Arab peace initiative, the Mideast Quartet decisions, statements by the European Union as well as US President Barack Obama's Mideast vision which he had recently outlined.” He added that the Palestinians want to earn the largest support to the bid in the UN. However, Erekat noted that the US and Canada had informed the Palestinian side that they won't vote in favor of the bid. On Friday, the member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)'s Executive Committee, Hanan Ashrawi, said that the Palestinians expect the UN General Assembly to vote on their application for statehood on Nov. 29. Ashrawi noted that the date coincided with the anniversary of the UN Partition Plan for Palestine and the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinians. She acknowledged that the PA leadership had faced immense pressure and “direct threats” to abandon the statehood bid. The PLO's official predicted that 150 countries would vote in favor of the Palestinian application “despite American and Israeli pressure.” In his Thursday speech to the General Assembly, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of pursuing a “policy of war, occupation and settlement colonization” and rejecting the two-state solution. The Palestinian president said that “Israel is promising the Palestinian people a new catastrophe, a new Nakba (catastrophe),” but he stated that the PA continues to believe in negotiations with Israel. “There is still a chance – maybe the last – to save the two-state solution and to salvage peace.” Abbas said his renewed statehood bid was not aimed at delegitimizing Israel, “but rather to assert that the state of Palestine must be realized.” Meanwhile, Erekat denied media reports that the US President Barack Obama asked Abbas to resume the peace talks with Israel. Erekat said that the Palestinian side hasn't received any official offer or proposal from Obama to resume peace talks with Israel. According to Erekat, “the United States stance toward the resumption of peace negotiations with Israel hasn't changed. The US administration wants the unconditioned resumption of the talks.” Earlier on Monday, the Palestinian daily Al-Quds quoted unidentified Palestinian source as saying that Abbas rejected the request of Obama to resume unconditional talks with Israel. The issue of settlements is one of the thorniest issues that stall the resumption of direct peace talks between Palestinian Authority and Israel which collapsed in October 2010 because Israel insisted to continue settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The international community, including the United States, Israel's most important ally, has been urging Israel to totally freeze its settlement constructions, yet the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government has so far refused to yield to that demand. The Palestinians insist not to resume any direct or indirect peace talks with Israel before the latter clearly declares a complete cessation of settlement activities in the territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem that Palestinians want the capital of their future state.
