Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Arabs Meet on Palestinian Push for U.N. ‘Deadline’ Resolution

Arab U.N. delegations on Monday discussed a Palestinian plan to make peace with Israel within a year and end Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories by late 2017, despite Israeli and U.S. opposition.

Several Western council diplomats told Reuters they had been surprised by the Palestinians’ sudden push to submit over the next few days a final draft resolution to the U.N. Security Council.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry he would press ahead, the official Palestinian WAFA news agency reported.

Jordanian U.N. Ambassador Dina Kawar, the sole Arab representative on the council, told reporters Arab delegations would do what Palestinians wanted but indicated Jordan would prefer not to rush things.

“In my national capacity, we would have liked to have more consultation,” she said. Kawar previously said she would like a resolution that was backed by all 15 council members including the United States.

Several European countries have urged a less stringent timeline to win broader support. The United States wants to wait until after Israeli elections in March.

Palestinian officials said the proposal calls for negotiations to be based on territorial lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war.

The Palestine Liberation Organization said the draft calls for resolving all major differences, known as “final-status issues,” within 12 months and ending the occupation by the end of 2017.

Israel, which pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, has said its eastern border would be indefensible if it withdrew completely from the West Bank.

A Palestinian draft, submitted to the Security Council by Jordan on Dec. 17, had called for Jerusalem to be the shared capital of Israel and a Palestinian state.

The final proposal reverts to a harder line, saying only that East Jerusalem will be the capital of Palestine, the officials said. It also calls for an end to Israeli settlement building and releasing Palestinian prisoners.

Israel has said a Security Council vote, following the collapse in April of U.S.-brokered talks on Palestinian statehood, would deepen the conflict. It supports negotiations but rejects third-party timelines.

Nine Security Council votes are needed to adopt a resolution, which would then force the United States, Israel’s closest ally, to decide whether to veto it. Washington would be expected to vote against it, diplomats say.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.