The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorist organization behind the Palestinian Authority (PA) revealed on Monday that it has once again postponed submitting a resolution to the UN Security Council, which demands an end date to “Israel’s occupation.”
PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told the Palestinian Arab Ma’an News Agency that the decision was made to buy time in continuing to lobby for the required nine council members to vote for the move, and because the Security Council is preoccupied with Iran nuclear talks that reach their deadline on Monday.
“The permanent member states have informed us that they would give priority to the Iranian issue not to the Palestinian statehood issue,” al-Maliki said. “We haven’t backed down on the resolution or cancelled it despite the international opposition and US threats.”
The talk of not backing down comes after the PLO claimed it would submit the proposal by the end of October before delaying, and after PLO official Wassel Abu Yusef promised it would be submitted by the end of November ahead of the present postponement.
The PA is wallowing in $4.8 billion in debt, and is largely propped up by Israel financially, as well as by the US, making the “US threats” to cut funding likely a crucial incentive for the delays.
Al-Maliki threatened that the PLO will submit the resolution to the UN as soon as the Iran talks reach some sort of conclusion and subside, and support has been gathered for the motion, although the US is expected to veto the unilateral bid for Palestinian statehood which is in breach of the Oslo Accords.
However, there are reports that US President Barack Obama may possibly place such a veto on condition that Israel stop all building in Judea and Samaria, a move that ministers have hinted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may concede on, and which regional leaders warn stems from Israel’s weak stance in presenting its rights to the land.
The UN bid was announced in September at the UN General Assembly, when PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas threatened unilateral action in asking the Security Council to demand a deadline for Israel to withdraw from its Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria.
Specifically, the resolution calls for the “full withdrawal of Israel, the occupying power, from all of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, as rapidly as possible and to be fully completed within a specified time-frame, not to exceed November 2016,” reports AFP.
If the US does veto the PLO bid, the terrorist organization has threatened to turn to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch a legal campaign against Israel – a move that could backfire as it would leave the PA and PLO open to war crimes charges as well. Abbas has already had a lawsuit leveled against him at the ICC.
