According to this account, written by the NYTimes’ Isabelle Kershner, “Mr. Abbas said that after they arrived at the United Nations on Sept. 19, the Palestinians would hand their application to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for submission to the Security Council, and that a copy would go to the General Assembly chief. Then, he said, the Palestinians will see what occurs. Earlier Thursday, Palestinian officials and supporters kicked off a popular campaign to accompany the United Nations bid, with several dozen people marching to the United Nations headquarters in Ramallah”.

There was some initial confusion elsewhere about this “popular campaign” delivering a letter to the UN office in Ramallah — with some, particularly in Israel, thinking that this was the presentation of the official request.

This was a matter taken up at the UN regular noon briefing for journalists at UNHQ/NY on Thursday, according to the transcript, here:

Question: Speaking of which, reports, there are reports out from Gaza, from, sorry, from Ramallah that some sort of Palestinian letter, either by the Palestinian Authority or by activists, was sent to the Secretary-General. Has such a letter been received by the Secretary-General? What is your understanding of this, the nature of this?

Deputy Spokesperson: Mr. Serry has received the letter and he is in the process of transmitting it to the Secretary-General.

Question: Received a letter from?

Deputy Spokesperson: From I believe it was an activist; a member of an NGO.

Question: An activist? Meaning you don’t perceive this to be an official Palestinian request for membership of the UN?

Deputy Spokesperson: Well, we’ll have to wait till the letter is received in the Secretary-General’s office and its contents are read.

Question: But you said Serry has already received it, so I assume that you know the content of it?

Deputy Spokesperson: No, I don’t know the content of it, no.

According to the NYTimes: “Mr. Abbas said that if the Quartet produced a package to pave the way back to negotiations that included an Israeli freeze on settlement construction and the use of the pre-1967 lines with agreed land swaps as the basis for talks on borders — both longstanding Palestinian demands — the Palestinians ‘will go to the United Nations and we will return back to talks’.”

Abbas also said: ” ‘To be frank with you, they came too late’, Mr. Abbas told a group of foreign reporters on Thursday evening at the Mukata, his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The international powers had ‘wasted all the time’ since the beginning of the year, he said, and even now, less than two weeks before the prospective bid at the United Nations, they still had not produced any concrete proposal. Mr. Abbas was speaking after meeting in recent days with two senior American diplomats, David Hale and Dennis Ross, and Tony Blair, the envoy of the so-called quartet of Middle East peacemakers that includes the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. He said he had also spoken by telephone with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton this week”.

The JPost report said that Abbas told a group of visiting American Congressmen, including Steny Hoyer of Maryland [Democratic Party whip in the House of Representatives], that “there are no negotiations now because Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has placed pre-conditions, specifically a demand that there be an IDF presence in the Jordan Valley. Abbas told the delegation that the discussions he has had with Netanyahu in the past ‘have led nowhere, because unless we agree to be occupied by IDF troops, he doesn’t want to talk about anything in the next step’. Abbas, according to Hoyer, said he met with Netanyahu last year, but that those talks ‘went nowhere because Netanyahu only wanted to talk about security, and that the implementing of that security was deployment of IDF troops in the Jordan Valley’.”

It is clear that there is a clear battle, now, for the Jordan Valley — a battle as big as that over Jerusalem.

See a related story posted on our sister blog, www.un-truth.com, here.

Netanyahu made his first qualified acceptance of the idea of a Palestinian state in his Bar Ilan University speech in 2010 (in answer to U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo some weeks earlier) that a future Palestinian state must be demilitarized.

Hoyer is leading a group of 26 U.S. Congresspeople from the Democratic Party on a week-long trip sponsored by what the JPost described as “the American Israel Education Foundation, a charitable organization affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee”. The JPost says that 55 U.S. Congresspeople from the Republican Party will be coming on two other trips in the coming weeks.

The JPost article is published here.

The story noted that “Hoyer, who co-authored a Congressional resolution last month with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) against a Palestinian unilateral move at the UN, said that he and some other members of the delegation told Abbas they felt a move at the UN would be a ‘destabilizing effort’, and that both Israel and the Palestinians agreed in the past that the only way to solve difference was through bilateral negotiations. Hoyer said that the delegation ‘indicated’ that a PA decision to go to the UN ‘would be unwise and that the Congress would be very concerned about that happening, and might take action’. When asked what kind of action, Hoyer said ‘funding’. Hoyer held out the possibility that while budgetary funding to the PA might be stopped, it might not be stopped for security training. A judgment would have to be made, he said, whether cutting off funding for security might not be ‘cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. Undermining security in the West Bank may have an adverse consequence in Israel’.”

UN photo of US Ambassador Susan Rice casting veto on 18 February 2011

All of the other 14 members of the UNSC voted in favor of the resolution, which would have condemned Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.  At least 120 UN member states co-sponsored the resolution, despite a few last-minute drop-outs…

The draft resolution, if it had passed, would have “demanded that “Israel, as the occupying power, immediately and completely ceases all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem and that it fully respect its legal obligations in this regard”.

The British Ambassador later made a point of saying not only that Israeli settlements are illegal, but also added that the three largest EU members hope to see Palestinian State by September of this year. Britain and France are two of the Security Council’s five permanent members who have the power to veto a resolution, and Germany is now one of the Security Council’s ten non-permanent members who have ordinary voting powers — all three voted in favor of the Palestinian-supported draft resolution that the U.S. vetoed.

The U.S. apparently preferred to say only that Israeli settlements were “illegitimate”.

UPDATE: A post on the Arabist blog here highlights this point:
“It’s rather morbid to read the detailed justification for this. From a State Dept. briefing here:
QUESTION: Yes, Ambassador Rice, you say that you reject the continued building of settlements on the West Bank as being illegitimate. Yet you vote that no on a resolution that calls it illegal. Why is that, considering that the State Department, as far back as 1978, considered settlement activities illegal?
AMBASSADOR RICE: The United States has not characterized settlement activity as illegal since, I believe, 1980. And – but what we do believe firmly and have reiterated forcefully, including today, is that continued settlement activity is not legitimate”…

Israel was officially pleased with the U.S. veto.

UPDATE: On Sunday, after the Shabbat shut-down from Friday night to Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of the regular weekly cabinet meeting that “Over the weekend, US President Barack Obama decided to veto a draft UN Security Council decision condemning Israel. Israel deeply appreciates this decision and we remain committed to advancing peace both with our neighbors in the region and with the Palestinians. I believe that the US decision makes it clear that the only way to peace is direct negotiations and not through the actions of international bodies, which are designed to bypass direct negotiations. The most important thing in any negotiations that we conduct is the security component. The security component is critical to any peace agreement and I think that today, we can see what an unstable region we live in, a region in which Iran tries to exploit the situation that has been created in order to expand its influence by passing warships through the Suez Canal. Israel views this Iranian move with utmost gravity and this step, like other steps and developments, underscores what I have reiterated in recent years – Israel’s security needs will grow and the defense budget must grow accordingly”.

However, Attila Somfalvi reported on Israel’s YNet website on Sunday that one of several unnamed “state officials” told the publication that “Israel is becoming increasingly isolated from West European countries which consider settlements a red tag … Every time Israel issues another tender for construction in the settlements it distances the friendly European nations. We have a very serious problem and the fact that there is no peace process makes it harder to get Western European nations to support Israel. Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy are angry with Netanyahu and do not accept the fact that the prime minister did not extend the freeze for an additional three months”.

YNet quoted other unnamed “sources in Jerusalem” who “warned of the possibility of damage to Israel and Europe’s financial relations. “It is estimated that the weekend vote will have financial consequences in relation to Europe. There are countries which already boycott Israeli goods and things may deteriorate further. The Europeans notice the fact that Ashton’s policy is equivocally anti-settlements. Settlements and construction contribute to Israel’s de-legitimization in all of Europe. In the past, European countries could have been influenced, but today it’s virtually impossible”. This is reported here.

The YNet article noted the generic comment often made, as it reports, by government senior officials, including top ministers, who have recently said: “Initiative should be taken to advance the political process. The current stagnation isn’t good for Israel in any way and we must do everything to return to the negotiating table”. YNet added that “In the past few days, rumors have spread in the political arena that Israel and the US are trying to form a political plan, both together and separately, which will be presented by US President Barack Obama. The plan aims to bring both sides back to the negotiating table. However, instability in the region prevents the process from progressing at this point”…

The U.S. explanation for its veto — widely and bitterly mocked as incoherent in comments by journalists and Middle East experts on Twitter Friday night — was that it did not think that Middle East peace should be negotiated in the Security Council — but instead in bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Palestinians have refused to re-enter these negotiations precisely because of Israel’s continued settlement activities.

The U.S, had pressed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to avoid putting the draft resolution on the table for a vote. The U.S. instead proposed an alternative strategy — a statement, instead of a resolution. [See. below, the comments of the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, for details...]

But, President Abbas refused — in his circumstances, after the Palestine Papers leaked on Al-Jazeera, he could hardly have done otherwise and kept his authority. He convened the Fatah Central Committee and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee to back him up, which they did.

There was a desultory pro-Abbas demonstration + extra security in downtown Ramallah Friday night as the U.S. cast its expected veto. After they had been dispersed by a relatively relaxed Palestinian Security force in Ramallah’s central downtown Manara Square. small groups of young teenagers with Abbas posters on wooden sticks sat on low rock walls under light from street lamps Friday night on Irsal Street, outside the Muqata’a.

In a State Department Conference call briefing after the veto, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said: “we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity. We view Israeli settlement activity in territories that were occupied in 1967 as undermining Israel’s security, its democracy, and hopes for peace and stability in the region. The U.S. and other Council members are in full agreement on that, but also in full agreement about the urgent need to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, more urgent than ever, given recent developments in the region. And that resolution needs to be based on a two-state solution and an agreement between the two parties that establishes the viable, independent, and contiguous state of Palestine, once and for all”.

Rice added: “No outside country has invested more effort and energy and resources in pursuit of that peace than the United States has, and we will continue to do so. But the only way that that goal can be reached, the common goal of a two-state solution, is, as a practical matter, through direct negotiations between the parties. There’s no short cut to that end. And every potential action, including action in the Security Council, has to be measured against one test, and that’s whether it will move the parties closer to negotiations and agreement or take them further apart. And our judgment was that this resolution would not have advanced the goal of getting the parties closer to negotiations and agreement. On the contrary, it would have hardened the positions of one or both sides. Instead of the outcome we had today, the United States has been working very hard, and we put forward with the support of other members of the Security Council a constructive path that would have garnered the unanimous support of the Council and advanced the goal of peace. And we regret very much that this effort was not accepted and is no longer viable”.

No longer viable?

Nothing is stopping Obama from acting on what he promised Abbas in alternative statement on settlements before US veto on draft UNSC resolution…

But, Ambassador Rice said that because of the lack of unanimity in the Security Council – due, in this case, to the U.S. veto – the U.S. suggested statement was no longer viable.

Pressed by AP’s Matthew Lee to explain, she replied: “Our aim was to advance this process through a three-part constructive proposal that had the support of many members of the Security Council and we think would have been unanimously embraced. And that (1) included the proposal that the Russians had put forward for a trip to the region, which would be the first such trip in 30 years – over 30 years by the Security Council, not only to Israel and the Palestinian territories but other states in the region; a (2) very strong presidential statement from the Security Council, which would have gone further than we have gone of late on the issue of settlements and other important issues that would have been agreed by the Council; and (3) we had also been willing to use the upcoming Quartet statement as a vehicle for making some new and important statements on core issues, including territory, as well as settlements. That’s – it is – in our view, very unfortunate that this proposal, which would have gotten the unanimous support of the Council, was not accepted because it would have taken the process forward rather than lead to the outcome that we had today. But the proposal of the trip to the region seems even more complicated today than it was yesterday. And I think its viability is quite questionable at this point”.

Is this diplomacy?

An interesting footnote, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad apparently did not agree with the strategy of Palestinian President Abbas. Fayyad issued a Tweet before the vote — and the veto — saying “Its not the right time to proceed with a UN resolution on Israeli settlements. We must not abandon it, but we need to rethink proceeding now”.

He, or his office, later added, or clarified: “I never said we should abandon the UN resolution, I said it is wise to delay it”.

Fayyad seems to like urging people to rethink things…

On Sunday, during a visit to the northern West Bank town of Jenin, Fayyad reportedly “urged the Americans to ‘reconsider their approach’ after vetoing a Security Council resolution that would have declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem to be illegal. The measure was supported by the council’s 14 other members.  ‘The Americans have chosen to be alone in disrupting the internationally backed Palestinian efforts’, Fayyad said in an interview with The Associated Press”.  This report was published here.

And, on Saturday, the PLO’s Yasser Abed Rabbo reportedly said the strategy after Friday’s US UNSC veto will be to go now to UN General Assembly in “uniting for peace” move — the “Emergency Special Sessions” have deliberately been left open for quick resumption. So, if this is serious, next week the UNGA could meet. But, then what?

After the vote, Ami Kaufman was scathing in his criticism, in the Jerusalem Post, of the American action: “Let’s not forget, the US was willing to dish out billions of dollars just so Israel would extend the settlement construction freeze by three months – just 90 days! All the US had to do in this case was abstain from the vote. What’s the worst that could have happened? Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman would have gotten angry? Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would have frowned? Honestly, what’s the worst thing that could have happened from just sitting back and letting the world show some solidarity with the Palestinians? Was the heat from AIPAC that bad? What other explanation could there be? US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice had a strange answer. She said that a onesided UN vote would hamper the chances of reaching a deal through negotiations. But what negotiations was she talking about exactly? The ones America failed to renew? And how can she claim anything is one-sided when the US was the only one, out of 14 countries, to vote against this resolution? They’re not ‘illegal’, they’re ‘illegitimate’. Classic. A masterpiece. A masterpiece of hypocrisy. ‘Pathetic’ is an understatement. ‘Irrelevant’ is much more appropriate. The US has lost any ounce of credibility it had left with this latest move. It’s time for someone else to take over this show. Since President Barack Obama has taken office, he’s shown nothing but incompetence when it comes to maneuvering between the powers of the Middle East, and a gross misunderstanding of the conflict”.

This was published here, and originally published on +972 magazine, which he co-founded, here.

But, the truth is, the U.S. veto doesn’t change much.

[It later emerged that diplomats saw much in the British explanation of vote (a possible "European plan"?) -- which we shall post about later...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement after the vote that “The International Court of Justice in a 2004 advisory opinion noted the widely-accepted view that the Geneva Conventions not only prohibit forced population transfers, ‘but also any measures taken by an occupying Power in order to organize or encourage transfers of parts of its own population into the occupied territory’. Israeli settlement policies also violate international human rights prohibitions against discrimination. Human Rights Watch recently documented Israel’s two-tier system for the Palestinian and Israeli Jewish populations in the 60 percent of West Bank area that Israel controls and in East Jerusalem. Israeli policies deliberately withhold basic services from Palestinians, causing tremendous hardships by preventing and punishing the construction of homes and infrastructure for their communities, while providing generous financial benefits and infrastructure for Jewish settlements. Such differential treatment lacks any security rationale, but is meted out on the prohibited basis of race, ethnicity, and national origin. UN sources told Human Rights Watch that the US government attempted to persuade the Palestinian Authority to forgo a vote on the resolution by offering to support a statement from the Security Council president condemning settlements as ‘illegitimate’, instead of clearly identifying them as ‘illegal’, as provided in the resolution. As a party to the Geneva Conventions, the United States is obligated ‘to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances’.” This HRW statement is posted here.

The last time we heard about an Obama call to Abu Mazen was on the day after Obama’s inauguration — and his call to Abu Mazen then was his first to a foreign leader after taking office.

Apparently, U.S. Special Middle East envoy will be back in the region soon [either for a sixth round of indirect or "proximity" talks that started in May, or perhaps to transition into the direct mode which is, and always was, inevitable].

How do we know about this? Haaretz wrote that “Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh told the Palestinian news agency WAFA following the phone conversation that Abbas expressed his commitment to a serious peace process that would ‘end the occupation’ and result in an independent Palestinian state”. This report can be read in full ,strong>here].

According to another report also posted this evening in Haaretz. “Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday that he was considering the U.S. proposal to start indirect talks with Israel. Abbas was referring to a proposal made by U.S. Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, who suggested that negotiations between Israel and the PA would take place in the format of proximity talks, similar to the indirect negotiations that Israel held with Syria under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert” …

his Haaretz article continues: “Mitchell proposes that he travel between Jerusalem and Ramallah, relaying messages to the two sides on various core issues, including borders, Jerusalem, refugees and security. At a later stage the talks might be taken over by low-level officials on both sides to evaluate if negotiations can be continued at top levels. Speaking to reporters in London, Abbas said he intended to consult with other Arab states over the U.S. proposal. He said he was under no pressure from the Arab states to restart negotiations and instead emphasized the need for a complete building freeze in the settlements. Abbas added that the PA and Israel had come to a security agreement that would be implemented once Israel Defense Forces troops pulled out of Palestinian land. On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to the release of hundreds of Fatah prisoners as part of efforts to jump-start the peace talks”. This report is published here.

In a briefing at the U.S. State Department in Washington on 26 January, Acting Deputy Department Spokesman Mark C. Toner told journalist that “Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell completed a series of meetings in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Egypt. We remain committed to achieving our goal of comprehensive peace in the Middle East. With the Israelis and Palestinians, Special Envoy Mitchell continued the two-pronged approach we have consistently pursued: (1) To encourage the parties to enter negotiations to reach agreement on all permanent status issues; and (2) to help the Palestinians build the economy and institutions that will be necessary when a Palestinian state is established. The two objectives are mutually reinforcing. Each is essential. Neither can be attained without the other. Special Envoy Mitchell will be following up with the parties in the coming days and he will return to the region in the near future”.

At about the same time, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak “called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table. ‘I am proud to be a member of a government that has taken upon itself the responsibility of addressing issues pertaining to the Road Map’, he said. While Israel is the strongest country in the region, Barak said that time ‘is not on our side. We need to stand with our eyes open and stable feet… to look for a crack or a window to make peace’, he said. ‘We have a paramount interest in establishing defined borders between ourselves and the Palestinians, that will set the stage for two states for two peoples’.” Barak also said that “uranium enrichment on Iranian soil cannot be legitimized, since this will lead to an Iranian military nuclear capability”. These remarks were reported by the Jerusalem Post here.

President Abbas:

1.) “…the situation in Gaza Strip is intolerable, unbearable”.

2.) “Since things have not succeeded so far, it does not mean that we have failed”.

3.) “if we reach an agreement, then it’s very good. If we do not reach an agreement, then we wish for the new administration, that it will continue what we have already started and where we’ve reached today”.

4.) “I would like to say that these efforts that have been exerted were not wasted, were not done in vain. If they – we felt it was done in vain, then we would have stopped. So we feel that we are exerting efforts and that there is – there are benefits inevitably from these efforts. And hopefully, in the future, you will see these results”.

Secretary Rice:

1.) “We’ll continue to press the Israelis about their Roadmap obligations and to work with the Palestinians on their Roadmap obligations as well”.

2.) “I think I’ve made very clear the U.S. position that the settlement activity is not conducive to creating an environment for negotiations, yet negotiations go on..:”

3.) “I would just like it understood that President Bush has been a tireless advocate of the establishment of the institutions, and ultimately, the establishment of the Palestinian state itself. We still have a number of months before us to work toward the Annapolis goal and we’re going to do precisely that. But again, this is not easy. If this had been easy, somebody would have solved it a long time ago. And it has fallen to us to try again to find a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. God willing and with the goodwill of the parties and the tireless work of the parties, we have a good chance to succeed”.

4.) “What I can tell you is that it is a very serious negotiating process. They are dealing with all issues before them. No issue is off the table. This is the most intensive discussions that have been there at least since Camp David and, in some ways, they’ve employed new mechanisms to deal with these issues that were not even there in 2000. And so this is very, very hard.  I just want to repeat, if there had been an easy solution to the establishment of two states living side by side, it would have been done a long time ago”.

About two weeks after that, Abbas will travel to Washington DC to meet U.S. President George W. Bush.

The Palestinian President froze contacts with Olmert after a violent Israeli offensive in Gaza at the end of February and the beginning of March. However, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Palestinian negotiator Ahmad Qurei’ (Abu Alaa) have continued to meet Israeli on a working level almost without interruption.

Both Abbas and Rice continued to express optimism that it would still be possible to reach an agreement with Israel in 2008 that would result in the creation of a Palestinian state.

However, a day after Israel pledged to remove 50 out of some 580 roadblocks and checkpoints (none of the really much more difficult manned checkpoints are included in that number, apparently), announcements were made about plans to build 1400 new homes in East Jerusalem and in the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that no new settlements would be built, and he implied that this activity was being done under –as if part of — the present Annapolis process.

The Associated Press reported that “Olmert insisted the building would not disrupt peace negotiations. ‘This is going on within the framework of negotiations, and the negotiations will continue to progress’, he said. At a U.S.-hosted peace conference in November, Israel and the Palestinians agreed to relaunch long-stalled talks and base negotiations on the 2003 ‘road map’ peace plan. The U.S.-backed proposal calls on Israel to freeze all settlement activity, including in existing settlements. Because it annexed east Jerusalem after the 1967 war, Israel does not consider construction there to be settlement activity. The Palestinians and the international community do. Israel also maintains the right to build in West Bank settlements to account for ‘natural growth’ of the population there, even though the road map specifically bans such activity”. The full AP report can be read here .

Earlier Monday, Peace Now reported that at least 1700 new homes had been approved for the settlements since the Annapolis Conference on 27 November (presumably these are in addition to the 1400 new units announced later in the day)

After the announcement today of the new housing plans in the settlements, Rice said: “We continue to state America’s position that settlement activity should stop, that its expansion should stop — that it is indeed not consistent with ‘road map’ obligations”.

Palestinian President Abbas said, in his joint press conference with Rice, that “we hope that the American referee or judge will make sure that Israel will meet its obligation, in particularly, namely, to stop settlement activities, in particular in Jerusalem, and also to fix a comprehensive reciprocal or mutual truce and also to release the (inaudible – Palestinian?) detainees as well as to ask for the return of the (inaudible – refugees?) and to reopen the institutions in eastern Jerusalem and to reinstate the situation before 2000 – year 2000. And all of these are agreed under the Roadmap”.

Abbas also said:  “We do support all efforts exerted to remove the siege on Gaza, and these efforts are being exerted by Egypt in particular … I have asked Dr. Rice to continue in delivery of pharmaceuticals, water, electricity to our people in Gaza with practical steps in order to relieve the siege and the closures at the Palestinian internal affairs level.