Abbas applies for UN recognition

23 September 2011 Last updated at 12:10 ET

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has submitted his bid to the UN for recognition of a Palestinian state.

He presented a letter requesting full membership of the UN. He is addressing the General Assembly to argue the case, after a rapturous welcome.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is to speak soon afterwards. His spokesman said Israel regretted the step.

Israel and the US oppose it, saying a Palestinian state can only be achieved through talks with Israel.

President Barack Obama told Mr Abbas on Thursday that the US will use its UN Security Council veto to block the move, but Mr Abbas vowed to press ahead with the bid.

Meanwhile in the West Bank, Palestinians are holding mass rallies to coincide with the submission of the bid.

Giant TV screens have been set up in several cities so that people can watch Mr Abbas’s General Assembly speech, expected at 16:30 GMT.

“I am going to listen to Abbas’s speech because it will tell us our future and our destiny, and we are expecting so much from him, to declare our state,” Khalil Jaberi, a 21-year-old university student in the city of Hebron, told the Associated Press news agency.

Mr Abbas has called for peaceful marches in support of his initiative, but some clashes were reported:

• One Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli troops during clashes in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, Palestinian sources say
• At the Qalandiya checkpoint, Israeli troops fired tear gas on stone-throwing Palestinian ths
• In the village of Nabi Saleh, protesters burned Israeli flags and pictures of President Obama

The process began with Mr Abbas presenting a written request for UN recognition of the Palestinian territories as a state to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Palestinian sources say the request is concise and short, and envisages a state based on pre-1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital.

Mr Netanyahu’s spokesman Gidi Shmerling responded almost immediately, saying: “We regret the step. We believe that the only path to true peace is through negotiations and not unilateral steps.”

The BBC’s Kim Ghattas at the UN says that until the last minute Western diplomats tried and failed to stop the Palestinians making the request.

Even now, efforts are under way to restart direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians in an attempt to defuse tensions, our correspondent says.

If Mr Ban decides the application is in order, the Security Council will examine it and vote on it. In order to pass, it would need the backing of nine out of 15 council members, with no vetoes from the permanent members.

A Security Council vote could take weeks to come about and the US may not even need to exercise its veto – Washington and Israel have been lobbying council members to either vote against the Palestinian plan or abstain.

But the Palestinians’ application has given them some political initiative, putting their case for independence back on the international agenda in a much more urgent way than it was before, says the BBC’s Middle East analyst Jeremy Bowen.

The move has focused diplomatic minds on restarting the stalled peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis, which broke down a year ago.

On Wednesday, Mr Obama told the General Assembly: “Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians – not us – who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and security; on refugees and Jerusalem.”

It is politically embarrassing abroad for Mr Obama to be trying so hard to block the Palestinian application while the US praises the changes sweeping the Arab world, says our Middle East analyst.

But with a re-election campaign to fight, the president needs the votes of Israel’s supporters in the US, our analyst says.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has urged a compromise, suggesting the General Assembly give the Palestinians enhanced status as a non-member state to allow a clear timeline for talks – a month to start negotiations, six months to deal with borders and security and a year to finalise a “definitive agreement”.

A vote on enhanced status – enjoyed by others such as the Vatican – would not require a Security Council recommendation but a simple majority in the General Assembly, where no veto is possible.

Currently the Palestinians have observer status at the UN.

The “Quartet” of US, European, Russian and UN mediators has been working on reaching a framework agreement to restart talks, based on Mr Obama’s vision of borders fashioned from Israel’s pre-1967 boundary, with agreed land swaps.

Palestinians say their bid for statehood has been inspired by the Arab Spring, and is the result of years of failed peace talks.

While UN recognition would have largely symbolic value, the Palestinians argue it would strengthen their hand in peace talks.

— ’re ’s , . : A ‘Malign Intellectual Subculture’ – George Monbiot Smears Chomsky, Herman, Peterson, Pilger And Media Lens.