By Meredith Lee-Clark

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

 

JERUSALEM, Israel/West Bank – Palestinian officials announced on November 15 that they would seek a United Nations resolution to establish an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The proposed state would follow borders in place before the 1967 war between Israel and the Palestinians, and would include East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

 

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, held a press conference to accompany the announcement, and said that the Palestinian Authority had decided to take its case to the U.N. after negotiations surrounding talks between Israel and the Palestinians had stalled, primarily due to disagreements about Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

 

“Now is our defining moment,” Erekat said. “We went into this peace process in order to achieve a two-state solution…The endgame is to tell the Israelis that now the international community has recognized the two–state solution on the ’67 borders.”

 

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the Israeli cabinet on the day after the Palestinian announcement that there was a strong possibility of a U.N. vote in favor of a Palestinian state, as many countries had previously expressed support for the Palestinians. Israel was created by a U.N. mandate after World War II.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a press conference after the Palestinian announcement, rejecting the Palestinian action and saying that a unilateral action by the Palestinians would negate any terms of the 1998 Oslo Peace Accords and would destroy any goodwill between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

 

“There is no substitute for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and any unilateral path will only unravel the framework of agreements between us and will bring unilateral steps from Israel’s side,” said Netanyahu.

 

Middle East observers believe that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s options for moving forward are limited. Abbas announced a week before this most recent development that he would not seek reelection in a Palestinian national vote scheduled for 2010. Many experts have commented that Abbas was considerably weakened by Israel’s unwillingness to freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank.

 

For more information, please see:

 

Al Jazeera – Palestinians Warned Over U.N. Move – 16 November 2009

 

Ha’aretz – U.S.: Best Way to Achieve a Viable Palestine is Talks – 16 November 2009

 

Ma’an News Agency – Erekat: World Should Stand Against Occupation – 16 November 2009

 

Christian Science Monitor – Israel Rejects Palestinian Statehood Bid Via the U.N. – 15 November 2009

 

New York Times – Palestinians Aim to Secure U.N. Support for State – 15 November 2009