US welcomes Palestinian delay on UN vote to end Israeli occupation

Informed sources in Washington have said that efforts of the US Secretary of State John Kerry to suppress Palestinian Authority (PA) attempts to ask the UN Security Council to end the Israeli occupation did not go in vain.

According to Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, Kerry had been exerting much effort last week to suppress the UN vote on the Palestinian bid, fearing such a step would negatively affect the upcoming Israeli elections and might bring extremists such as Naftali Bennett to the government.

Jordan submitted the bid to the UN vote last Wednesday. Voting should have taken place 24 hours following the submission; however, nothing happened, which suggests that US efforts to delay the vote have been fruitful.

Meanwhile, the PA has refused demands to postpone the vote until after the Israeli elections in March 2015. PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said that he told Kerry that the Security Council vote on the Palestinian bid would positively affect the Israeli elections.

Al-Maliki also said that the PA had accepted Kerry’s request to delay the vote because he had not asked the Israeli occupation to stop settlement construction until after the elections.

Decision makers in Washington are pushing towards putting off such a vote because they are afraid that Palestinians might start a third intifada due to the deteriorating security situation in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

Speaking about the revival of negotiations, the US Secretary of State said that: “If all people worked together in order to reach common interests, I am sure that the Israeli people and the Palestinians, in the West Bank and the whole region will be ready to make peace.”

He noted that the present time is not appropriate to propose ideas and plans regarding peace because, he believes, that direct negations between both sides would not resume in the near future.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas has started an Arab and international tour to mobilise support for the Palestinian UN bid. However, some Palestinian factions, including prominent leftist and even Fatah leaders, expressed their objection to the Palestinian bid.

The secretary general of the Palestinian Initiative, Mustafa Al-Barghouti, said that the bid does not enjoy national consensus, while Fatah leader and PLC member, Marwan Al-Barghouti, who has been in Israeli jails since the beginning of last decade, warned of land swap and rights concessions.

Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas warned that the bid undermines Palestinian rights and said it would not accept any results that might concede any of the rights and principles of the Palestinian people, mainly regarding Jerusalem and the right of return.