Palestinians eye status upgrade at UN

THE Palestinians head to the United Nations in a bid to upgrade their status in a move likely to bring them new global recognition but also harsh repercussions.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas will personally submit the request seeking to upgrade their rank from an observer entity to that of a non-member observer state before the UN General Assembly.

If the request is approved by the 193 member states of the UN General Assembly, it will give the Palestinians access to a range of UN agencies and also potentially to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The bid comes 14 months after Mr Abbas first approached the UN, seeking full state membership in a request which stalled at the Security Council after the United States threatened to use its veto.

But today's resolution is likely to pass easily, requiring only a simple majority to go through.

"We are going to the United Nations fully confident in our steps," Mr Abbas said.

"We ask for a just peace, which is agreed on by the international community, which will give us our state with east Jerusalem as its capital.

"Without that, there is no hope at all."

As Mr Abbas prepared to present his request, a growing number of European countries pledged to vote in favour of the motion, among them France, Spain, Norway, Demark and Switzerland.

But the move is strongly opposed by the United States and Israel, who say a Palestinian state should only emerge out of bilateral negotiations, with US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Tuesday confirming that Washington saw the move as "a mistake" and would vote against it.

Israeli officials fear that the Palestinians could use their new-found status to sue them for war crimes at the ICC, and a senior Palestinian official on Wednesday confirmed that they had come under "intensive" world pressure to commit that they would not take such a step.

"We have not succumbed to pressure, we did not give any commitment," Hanan Ashrawi told reporters in Ramallah, saying most of the pressure had come from Britain.

"We haven't decided that tomorrow we are going to be recognised as a state and the day after, we are going to the International Criminal Court."

But she said she hoped the threat alone would prove to be "a positive inducement for corrective action" in Israel's stance vis-a-vis the Palestinians.

France is the first major European power to throw its weight behind the Palestinian bid, while Britain has yet to decide where it stands.

This week, Mr Abbas also received a rare show of support from the rival Palestinian nationalist movement, Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

The Islamist movement had publicly opposed the bid, but on Monday, Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal phoned Mr Abbas to tell him that the faction "welcomes the step of going to the United Nations for state observer status."

Harsh repercussions

But Mr Abbas is aware that there is likely to be a political backlash over his decision to return to the United Nations.

Israel is already weighing countermeasures in response to the UN bid, including freezing the transfer of tax and tariff funds it collects on their behalf.

Some ministers warned they could declare the 1993 Oslo peace accords void, and a foreign ministry policy paper even suggested "toppling" Mr Abbas's Palestinian Authority.

But a ministry spokeswoman on Tuesday said Israel would most likely not take any punitive measures, unless the Palestinians used the upgrade "as a platform for confrontation".

"Israel's reaction to the Palestinian move depends on what they choose to do.. If they use this resolution as a platform for confrontation, we will have to act accordingly," said Ilana Stein in reference to any move at the ICC.

Washington has repeatedly urged Mr Abbas to drop the request, warning he risks losing around $US200 million ($191 million) in development aid earmarked for the Palestinian Authority which is currently blocked in the US Congress.

It could also affect American financial aid to the United Nations under terms of a US law which prohibits funding international bodies that recognise a Palestinian state.

Mr Abbas argues that the UN bid complements efforts to achieve a two-state solution.

"We don't want any confrontations with the United States or Israel. If we could start a dialogue or negotiations the day after the vote, we will."

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