Ramallah: A draft resolution on ending the Israeli occupation will be submitted to the UN Security Council on Wednesday after the Palestinians agreed with France on a merged text, foreign minister Riyadh Al Maliki said.
“The draft that will be presented today [Wednesday] is the French draft based on Palestinian observations and decisions,” Al Maliki said.
“It will be presented to the Security Council as a blueprint, and could be put to a vote 24 hours after that,” he added.
The Palestinians began circulating a draft at the end of September, after President Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly that it was time to fast-track Palestinian statehood.
Diplomats said the Arab-backed text setting November 2016 as the deadline for an Israeli withdrawal stood no chance of approval in the face of the threat of a US veto.
The Palestinian decision to push the draft follows the latest series of meetings between US Secretary of State John Kerry, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian negotiators and European ministers.
Kerry suggested a UN resolution could play into the hands of Israeli hardliners as the country heads toward elections in March.
“Many of us share a deep sense of urgency about this,” he insisted. “But we’re also very mindful that we have to carefully calibrate any steps that are taken for this difficult moment in the region.”
The Palestinians say Kerry has threatened a veto from the United States.
Asked what kind of resolution the US might be able to support at the UN, Kerry insisted Monday the US administration has “made no determinations ... about language, approaches, specific resolutions, any of that.”
France stepped into the fray last month and, with Britain and Germany, began discussing options for a separate resolution setting a time frame for negotiations on a final settlement.
Mohammad Shtayyeh, a member of Abbas’s inner circle, said on Tuesday that France had “accommodated” the Palestinians and that delegates were thrashing out a merged text.
The European-backed draft had set a two-year deadline for conclusive peace talks, without touching on the issue of the Israeli occupation.
Al Maliki said France had scrapped mention of the thorny issue of Palestinians recognising the Israeli regime as a “Jewish state” from the draft, but gave no further details of its content.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected all notions of a withdrawal from the occupied West Bank or occupied East Jerusalem, citing security concerns.
The reported compromise text came after a flurry of meetings between US Secretary of State John Kerry, Netanyahu, Palestinian negotiators and European ministers.
Washington has wielded its Security Council veto repeatedly in the past in support of its Israeli ally.
The US administration has long insisted that a promised Palestinian state must come through negotiations with Israel. The Palestinians retort that repeated rounds of talks have gone nowhere.
