The UN Security Council will discuss US president Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan on Tuesday, but without voting on a draft resolution condemning it after the Palestinian Authority (PA) reportedly froze its submission.

According to the French news agency, AFP, the Palestinian Authority withdrew its request for a vote on a proposed resolution on Trump’s plan because of lack of support among council members. But the Palestinians denied this, saying the resolution had not been submitted because its wording needed finalizing.

In an unusual move, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will open the Security Council’s session. He will be followed by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, US ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft, and ambassadors from other member countries.

The original draft resolution, sponsored by Tunisia and Indonesia and backed by the Palestinians, asserts that the US plan violates international law and Security Council demands for a two-state solution based on borders drawn before the 1967 war.

The resolution was supposed to be put to a vote on Tuesday after Abbas addressed the council, but diplomats said many of its provisions were not acceptable to European members of the council, who support a two-state solution based on pre-1967 borders, and other council members, AFP claimed.

Secretary General of the PLO’s executive committee Saeb Erekat said Monday evening that reports of the Palestinian resolution being withdrawn were false. He added that the Palestinians would submit it as soon as they finalized its wording and became sure its principles would be supported.

“The US is applying very heavy pressure on member states, including states that identify with the Palestinian position,” a senior official in the Palestinian UN delegation told Haaretz. “There’s a difficult fight going on in the UN’s corridors.”

The French news agency also claimed that the Palestinians abstained from presenting the resolution after the US unexpectedly submitted amendments to Trump's plan.

Last week, Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said the resolution would be submitted to the council by Tunisia, the Arab states’ current representative on the panel.

“We’re embarking on a major diplomatic battle and are aware that the US will work to thwart the resolution or veto it,” he told Radio Ashams, which broadcasts from Nazareth. “But that won’t deter us. We’ll continue to work through every diplomatic channel to thwart [Trump’s] plan.”

He added that the Palestinians seek “to highlight the Palestinian position, which is based on the international community’s decisions.”

Trump's plan, the product of three-year suspicious moves by senior adviser Jared Kushner and some Gulf countries, would recognize Israel's authority over the illegal settlements, east Jerusalem and the Islamic holy sites, and would require the Palestinians to meet a highly difficult series of conditions to be allowed to have a state with its capital in a West Bank village in the east of the holy city.

The Palestinian-backed resolution stresses the need for an acceleration of international and regional efforts to launch credible negotiations on all final status issues in the Middle East peace process without exception.

A US veto at the council level would allow the Palestinians to take the draft text to the 193-member UN General Assembly, where a vote would publicly show how Trump's peace plan has been received internationally.

 

Source: The Palestinian Information Center