RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters)-the Palestinians will seek recognition as a UN Member State in September, where out of the impasse in the U.S.-mediated peacemaking with Israel, a senior Palestinian official said on Saturday.
Nabil Shaath called on President Barack Obama on Thursday criticized the planned step general Assembly UNITED NATIONS join those countries that have already endorsed a Palestinian State, taking account of the isrælsk-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Another Palestinian official, Nabil Abu Rdainah, said the drive to gain status as a State unilaterally could have same Israel must accept the requirement to extend a freeze of its settlement of the occupied territories, so that negotiations can resume.
But such approximation seen highly unlikely after the isrælske prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hosted in Washington on Friday, sparred with Obama over a new U.S. calls for the future Palestinian State to have an edge approximation in the West Bank border before Israel captured it in the 1967 war.
"Of course we want to go to the United Nations," said Shaath, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Reuters.
"Especially after Netanyahu used old pretext that he must be defended borders you can keep stealing our land, control the Jordan Valley and creating demographic facts on the ground." Diplomats see majority support for the Palestinians in the UN's general Assembly. But State vote would have first to be approved in the Security Council, where the United States--which insists on a negotiated peace agreement--have a veto.
"We urge President Obama to recognize the Palestinian State on the 1967 borders," said Shaath. "We are the United Nations in September, using all non-violent means."
"SYMBOLIC ACTS"
Isrælske defence minister Ehud Barak, who had earlier warned his countrymen that a pro-Palestinian "diplomatic tsunami" would Crest, welcomed Obama remarks on UN lobbying.
"The President has deleted September issue. It is very important, "Barak told channel two tv Isræls.
In February the United States struck down the Security Council proposals that would have branded the West Bank settlements as illegal. Analysts, noting that the other 14 Council members voted for, said the Palestinians seemed to be signaling that Washington was out of step with an international consensus.
Delivers a greater Middle East policy speech on Thursday, Obama warned Palestinians against "efforts to delegitimise Israel." He added: "symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September may not be able to create an independent State".
Obama questioned power-share deal forged last month between Abbas's Fatah faction and armed, rival Hamas Islamists who control Gaza and spurn the Jewish State viability.
But Palestinians, who long have complained about isrælske unilateralism, was encouraged by Obama's vision of borders ", based on 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps".
Israel denies Palestinian claims to the whole of their territory, which was previously held by Jordan, and now is peppered with Jewish settlements. Gaza, second half of the Palestinian polity, was evacuated of isrælerne in 2005.
Abbas spokesman Abu Rdainah said Palestinians preferred to pursue peace with Israel looks rather to the United Nations.
"Our position is to allow until September, to go back to the negotiating table based on a halt to the settlements," he said. "It would be our first choice."
(Written by Dan Williams; Editing by Alison Williams)
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