Palestinians raise stakes

Ramallah: Palestinians expect wider recognition of their statehood in the coming year and it will mean more than the mere "Facebook state" predicted by an Israeli minister, the Palestinian Prime Minister said on Wednesday.

Salam Fayyad was responding to Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon's comment that the statehood demand was no more serious than clicking the ‘like' option on the Facebook social networking site and would yield only a "Facebook state", without sovereignty or recognised borders.

"Definitely, I am not looking for ‘a Facebook-state', or as I call it myself a Mickey Mouse state. If it doesn't matter, why did he [Ayalon] bother to write a comment on it?" he said.

Fayyad added that recognition by many countries would "enshrine" the Palestinians' right to a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel captured along with east Jerusalem in the 1967 war.

Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador announced recognition of Palestinian statehood in the past month. Chile, Mexico, Peru and Nicaragua are reported to be weighing the same move. "These are welcome developments," Fayyad said.

He declined to comment on which countries might act and when, but said there was a growing international consciousness that it was time for Israeli occupation to end.

The diplomatic drive is part of Fayyad's two-year plan to establish all institutions and attributes of statehood by the middle of 2011. Analysts speculate the aim is to create momentum for a diplomatic domino effect leading to a bid for recognition at the UN General Assembly next September.

The Palestinians have rejected further negotiations until colony-building on West Bank land is frozen and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu states clearly the size and shape of the state he envisages agreeing to eventually.

Netanyahu on Monday said if talks on core issues such as borders, refugees and the status of occupied east Jerusalem should reach a dead-end, then a long-term interim agreement might by the only viable alternative option.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lists going to the UN as one of his options should the peace process collapse, rejected this idea outright.