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Palestinians Seek U.N. Vote on Israeli Withdrawal From Occupied West Bank U.S. Caught Between Support for Israel and European Push for Peace Talks
(about 9 hours later)
LONDON — Secretary of State John Kerry, meeting in Rome on Monday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, was confronted with unexpected pressure from the Palestinian Authority, which announced that it would put forward a United Nations Security Council resolution this week demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank by November 2016. LONDON — The United States finds itself caught between growing European pressure to do more to advance Middle East peace and Washington’s traditional support for Israel, which is in a heated election campaign and reluctant to make unilateral concessions.
The Palestinian announcement, which Mr. Netanyahu immediately denounced, could put Washington in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether to veto the resolution. Mr. Kerry, who will travel to Paris from Rome, is expected to discuss with European colleagues a compromise Security Council resolution proposed by France that seeks a two-year deadline for negotiations to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel. That dynamic was at the center of Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Rome and Paris on Monday. Amid rising European frustration with the collapse of the peace process, the Palestinian Authority announced Sunday that it would press for a United Nations Security Council resolution this week setting a time frame for a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem and for recognition of Palestine as a state.
Senior American officials traveling with Mr. Kerry said that no resolution had been finalized or submitted to the Security Council, but that Washington did not support deadlines for such negotiations. At the same time, France, Germany and Britain were busy drafting a resolution that would call for an immediate resumption of peace talks to lead to a sovereign Palestine, United Nations diplomats said.
At the moment, it is unclear whether the Palestinians — working through Jordan, which is one of the nonpermanent members of the Security Council — can get enough support on the body to submit their resolution this week. Mr. Kerry is scheduled to meet with Palestinian negotiators in London on Tuesday. Sweden has already recognized Palestine as a state, various European legislatures have urged their governments to do the same, and the European Parliament is expected to vote on a nonbinding resolution recognizing Palestine on Wednesday.
“Kerry and the Americans feel that using their veto will be a bit difficult, so they are trying to postpone our presentation of the resolution,” Abbas Zaki, a member of the central committee of the Fatah party, told Voice of Palestine radio. Hoping to find a way to redirect those efforts, Mr. Kerry spent Monday meeting Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and European foreign ministers. He is scheduled to visit London on Tuesday to see Palestinian negotiators and the leader of the Arab League, Nabil el-Araby, on what has been a hastily organized trip. Mr. Kerry may find help from the Jordanians, who would have to put forward a Security Council resolution for the Palestinians and have said they are not yet committed to doing so this week.
Washington is also trying to avoid a confrontation with Mr. Netanyahu, who is in the middle of an election campaign before voting scheduled for March. On Sunday evening, even before meeting Mr. Kerry, the Palestinians announced their plan to press for a vote on their resolution at the Security Council as early as Wednesday. The move seemed to be an effort to pressure the United States either to veto the resolution or to come up with language, in any French-sponsored resolution, that is closer to the Palestinian position.
Washington has vetoed resolutions demanding Palestinian statehood in the past, but patience is running out in Europe. With no negotiations underway, tensions between Israelis and Palestinians are rising, and Israel has continued to expand settlements beyond the lines of the 1967 armistice. But with the announcement, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, was also responding to internal politics after the death last week at an anti-settlement demonstration in the West Bank of a Palestinian minister, Ziad Abu Ein, who was in an altercation with Israeli forces. The Palestinians have put the blame for his death on Israel, which says he died from a stress-related heart attack.
The Europeans regard the settlements as illegal; Washington regards them as unilateral actions and calls them “obstacles to peace.” Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian spokesman and vice president of Birzeit University, said the announcement had “resulted from increased public pressure, because of Ziad Abu Ein and an accumulation of many things.”
Palestinian frustration with Mr. Netanyahu has prompted various moves and threats, including a demand that the Palestinians be granted full membership in the United Nations before any peace settlement can be agreed with Israel. But the move, he said, “may also be a way to influence the debate that is taking place in Europe and to place pressure on Kerry, who is negotiating with the Europeans.”
Washington has said that it does not support these Palestinian actions or any arbitrary deadlines for peace negotiations or an Israeli withdrawal. Still, European sympathy for Palestinian statehood is on the rise. Sweden, whose minority government has fallen, has recognized the state of Palestine, and legislatures in other countries, including France and Britain, have urged their governments to do so. The French, with significant European support, a senior European diplomat said, believe that there is a “window of opportunity” before the Israeli elections in mid-March to pass a resolution pressing for a rapid resumption of peace talks, with a two-year deadline. France told Security Council members on Monday that it was ready to circulate a draft text that would set “parameters for negotiations.”
The Obama administration would seem to prefer to press the Palestinians and the Europeans to put off any resolutions until after the Israeli elections, which could usher in a different prime minister. Washington would prefer to wait until the Israeli elections are over, and Israel is pressing the United States to veto any Security Council action and use its diplomatic might to try to stall individual European efforts.
On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu denounced the pressures, warned of “Islamic terrorism” and said that “this time, as well, we will not accept attempts to dictate to us unilateral moves on a limited timetable.” More pressure on Israel could help Mr. Netanyahu, the Americans have argued to the Europeans, who see Mr. Netanyahu as an obstacle toward negotiations. There is also the possibility that Mr. Netanyahu could lose the election, and that a new Israeli government might be more receptive to talks. Failing that, a resolution without a hard deadline could get American support and forestall the need for a veto.
He added, “We will rebuff any attempt that would put this terrorism inside our home, inside the state of Israel.” Talks are continuing on whether to include a specific mention of “a Jewish state,” as the original 1947 General Assembly resolution did.
Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, said that Israel expected the United States “to stick to its longstanding policy, and veto” a Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations. “Our American friends are cautiously, under certain conditions with certain red lines, ready to engage,” said one diplomat at the Security Council, speaking anonymously in accordance with diplomatic protocol. “There is a narrow path right now to get a consensus resolution.”
The Palestinians need nine of the 15 votes in the Security Council to submit their resolution; they may have higher chances of reaching that threshold after Jan. 1, when Malaysia and Venezuela will become members of the Security Council. A veto now might also be seen as intervention in Israeli politics. It would also be criticized by the Palestinians and by the Arab League, a number of whose member states are part of the American-led coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Mr. Netanyahu was scathing on Monday, vowing, “We will not accept attempts to dictate to us unilateral moves on a limited timetable.” He added, “We will rebuff any attempt that would put this terrorism inside our home, inside the state of Israel.”
The effort to press for new peace talks and to support a two-state solution before it is somehow too late is impelling France, in particular, French diplomats say.
The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, will have his own meeting with the Palestinian and Arab League representatives in Paris, which his spokesman described on Monday as “part of France’s efforts to relaunch, on a credible basis and as swiftly as possible, the peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians” and “to offer the parties a concrete political horizon.”
It was indicative of the pressures building up at the United Nations that Robert Serry, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, briefed the Security Council on Monday to urge a quick resumption of peace talks.
He called the nonbinding European resolutions in favor of a Palestinian state “significant developments that serve to highlight growing impatience at the continued lack of real progress in achieving a two-state solution” and noted that “governments are under increased public pressure to promote an end to the conflict once and for all.”
Mr. Serry said that Security Council resolutions could not replace Israeli-Palestinian talks, but that he hoped “Security Council action will generate constructive momentum.”
Still, the chances of a resolution coming to a vote before the end of the year appear slim. Jordan, which currently represents the Arab countries on the Council, has not said whether or when it plans to bring the Palestinians’ resolution up for a vote.
The Palestinians would need nine of the 15 votes in the current Security Council to pass the resolution, which would force the United States, as one of the permanent members, to decide whether or not to veto it. The Palestinians may have better luck after Jan. 1, when Malaysia, Spain and Venezuela become members of the Council.