Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas is launching in New York this week a campaign to join the United Nations as a full member state. US President Barak Obama has already said he will “veto” the Palestinian UN bid and has urged Abbas to drop his plans and go back to the negotiating table.
However, it’s clear for many that Mr.Obama has been pushed into a corner. Rejecting the Palestinian bid would mean conveying a risky message to the Arab world. Doing otherwise would go against the politics of his own re-election bid next year.
But what does Europe think? The position of many European governments is not clear yet. However, Sarkozy in his speech on Wednesday suggested that upgrading Palestine’s status from “observing entity” to “observing state” is a god compromise to start developing a concrete timeline of negotiations. This would include 1 month to start bilateral talks, 6 months to deal with security and borders and 1 year to sign the final agreement. It remains unclear if European leaders will back his proposal.
Israel has called the move “provocative” and “unilateral”, threatening with putting an end to negotiations if Palestine presses for international support. Negotiations were already frozen a year ago in a dispute over Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank.
Palestine demands recognition on the 1976 borders with east Jerusalem as their capital.