UK forcing Palestinians to drop UN bid

 

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/11/271565/uk-forcing-palestinians-to-drop-un-bid/

The British government is pressuring the Palestinian Authority (PA) to abandon its efforts for a non-member status in the United Nations, says a senior member of Fatah movement in Palestine.

“Until this moment, there is no international pressure on the PA concerning the UN bid (from Europe), except from Britain,” Nabil Sha’ath told Palestinian independent news agency Ma’an.

Sha’ath, who is a member of the Fatah Central Committee, said London has been trying to force the Palestinian Authority to drop its bid apparently for the US to get more time to kill regarding the bid for the recognition of a Palestinian state.

However, he pledged that the PA is determined to push with the bid despite London’s pressure and threats by the US to cut off its funding for the Palestinian Authority.

“The PA will not postpone the UN bid as it is a strategic decision,” Shaath said, adding that the bid would be submitted by the end of November.

Acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas has decided to table a resolution at the UN General Assembly for a Palestinian state.

In a recent interview with the Voice of Palestine Radio, Sha’ath stated that the PA expects several European countries to back the resolution.

“European countries are talking with us about the timing of the vote, the formula of the draft resolution to the UN.”

The US and the UK want Palestinians to return to the negotiating table over a deal with the Zionist regime of Israel.

The Palestinian-Israeli talks, observers consider no more than delaying tactics to buy time for Tel Aviv, hit a deadlock after the Israeli regime resumed building of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories in October 2010.

The Fatah bid centers on recognition of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, but Abbas has said he will only return to talks with Israeli officials when they recognize a Palestinian state at pre-1967 borders.

Abbas is not widely supported in Palestine partly due to his position on the return of Palestinian refugees forced out of their lands by Israeli forces in May 1948.

Many Palestinians believe he has given up on the right to return, especially after his interview with Israel’s Channel 2 earlier this month where he said he ‘does not have the right’ to live in the city that his family was expelled from in 1948.

His remarks were also condemned by the resistance movement Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Islamic Jihad Movement.