Defying the US, PA pushes for UN anti-settlement vote

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Jerusalem Post:

The US and the Palestinian Authority appeared to be on a collision course Thursday evening regarding PA insistence – over US objections – on bringing a resolution condemning the settlements to the UN Security Council for a vote on Friday.

Following a lengthy phone call between US President Barack Obama and PA President Mahmoud Abbas, the PA leader called an emergency meeting of the PLO and Fatah leaderships in Ramallah for Friday, Abbas’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, announced.

Sources in Ramallah said the phone conversation had dealt with the PA’s plan to seek a Security Council resolution condemning construction in the settlements.

Abbas rejected Washington’s demand not to take the matter to a vote in the council, they said.

Obama made it clear to Abbas that the US would veto such a resolution, so as not to jeopardize efforts to resume peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the sources said.

A week ago, US Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the Security Council was not the right place to address these issues.

Israeli officials have said in recent days that a move now in the Security Council would only further poison the atmosphere and make a return to negotiations even more difficult. The sources said that such a resolution was unlikely to have any impact on Israeli policy regarding construction in the settlements, which in any event has slowed down.

New White House spokesman Jay Carney, when asked about the matter at the daily White House press briefing, said Thursday he would not speculate on whether the US would use its veto, and added that no resolution had been put forward for a vote.

Carney reiterated that the Obama administration, “like every administration for decades,” did not “accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity,” and viewed the settlements’ expansion as “corrosive not only to peace efforts and a two-state solution, which we strongly support, but to Israel’s future itself.”

He stopped short, however, of labeling them “illegal.” He said the US believed “direct negotiations are the only path through which the parties will ultimately reach an agreement.”
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So far, it doesn't sound like the "Smart diplomacy" of Team Obama is helping...