Political demonstrators rallying near the residence of President Mahmoud Abbas have slammed American President over his promise to veto Palestinian bid for statehood recognition.
Protestors are carrying banners with “Obama the Hypocrite” written on them.
Yesterday Barack Obama made an attempt to convince the Palestinian president to drop the bid for statehood and not to take it to the UN Security Council – but failed.
As a result, President Barack Obama has personally sworn to veto any UN resolution recognizing a free and independent Palestinian state.
His comments came during a face-to-face meeting with the leader of the Palestinian Authority, who nevertheless vowed to press ahead with his country’s bid on Friday.
The American president had been hoping that Mahmoud Abbas would only approach the UN General Assembly, thus making a symbolic step, but the latter opted for addressing the UN Security Council directly. Abbas said he is going ahead to the UN Security Council despite the criticism from the American president.
Obama once again voiced the same position as Israeli authorities, that there should be negotiations first and only after the negotiations and peace talks on the table can there be any kind of discussion of some sort of Palestinian state being declared.
The point of the Palestinian leader, widely discussed on the Palestinian territories is that two decades of negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis have yielded nothing.
That is why the Palestinian leader, despite being under the greatest imaginable pressure, is expected to approach the UN Security Council on Friday, September 23.
Still, he will not be pushing the Security Council to vote tomorrow and this has already been criticized by some Palestinians, who would like to see the vote as soon as possible.
The French President Nicolas Sarkozy has also said that the UN should accept the Palestinian bid.
Tel-Aviv is outright hostile to the Palestinian move. One of the things Israeli authorities are afraid of is that Palestinians, once they have membership in the UN, will have access to the International Criminal Court. Such access will allow Palestinians take Israelis to court over disputes over land and the way they have been treated by Israeli authorities. In other words, over the whole issue of occupation.
It is known that eight out of the 15 members of the UN Security Council have indicated that they are prepared to vote in favor of the Palestinian state.
China, Brazil, India, Russia as well as South Africa – in other words the BRICS countries – have all declared their preparedness to vote for Palestinian statehood. Russia and China are permanent members of the council, while the others are coincidentally all non-permanent members this year.
So it seems that if the future declaration of a Palestinian state by-and-large has the support of the international community – at this stage the Americans will have to step out to use their right of veto to block the Palestinian bid.
People within the Palestinian Autonomy have been taking to the streets for two days now, anticipating the event which most of them have been waiting for all their lives.
Right now Palestinians are gathering near the place where the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is buried in Ramallah. They will continue to rally until tomorrow, when the bid is put forward in the UN.
Palestinians feel euphoric and believe the very important moment they have been waiting for has nearly come and they prepare to celebrate it in all Palestinian cities.
Orthodox Jews in New York, Paris and London have also shown their support for the bid.
The Israeli army is on high alert and has pulled into the West Bank. They are particularly concerned that right wing Israeli extremists among settlers will use the Palestinian independence bid as a pretext to provoke violence.
The settlers maintain that under no circumstances will they ever recognize the Palestinian state. There have already been reports of settlers intentionally provoking Palestinians.