Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas informed US Secretary of State John Kerry by phone that he would press ahead with the initiative despite Israeli and US opposition, the official Palestinian WAFA news agency reported.
Several European countries had been pushing for a less stringent timeline that might win broader support.
"Today the Arab group will meet in New York, and we will submit the original draft resolution to the Security Council hoping to conclude the vote by tomorrow or the day after," senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat told Reuters.
Palestinian officials said the proposal calls for negotiations to be based on the territorial lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war.
"The draft resolution calls for the resumption of negotiations to solve all final status issues by no later than 12 months after the adoption of the resolution and ensures the end of the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 will come no later than the end of 2017," the Palestine Liberation Organization said.
"It calls for two sovereign, democratic and secure states, Palestine and Israel."
Israel, which pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, has said its eastern border would be indefensible if it completely withdrew its military forces from the West Bank.
A Palestinian draft, submitted to the Security Council by Jordan on December 17, had called for Jerusalem to be the shared capital of Israel and a future Palestinian state.
The final proposal reverts to a harder line, saying only that East Jerusalem will be the capital of Palestine, the officials said. It also calls for an end to Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israel has said a Security Council vote, which follows the collapse in April of US-brokered talks on Palestinian statehood, would only deepen the decades-old conflict. It supports negotiations but rejects third-party timelines.
Source: Reuters - globaltimes.cn
29/12/14
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Israel Uses Gaza as Testing Ground for New Weapons: Palestinian Official...
ReplyDeleteIsrael has used the Gaza Strip as a testing ground for new and illegal weapons, the top official of the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI) party said, as quoted by the Middle East Monitor on Monday.
"There is conclusive evidence that it used the Gaza Strip as a test bed for its deadly weaponry," PNI Secretary-General Mustafa Barghouti was quoted by MEM as saying.
Speaking at a 2014 review in the Palestinian de facto administrative capital of Ramallah in the West Bank, Barghouti claimed Israel had fired 21,000 metric tons of high explosives during the 50-day Israel-Gaza conflict in July and August.
The secretary-general added that amount was equivalent to two nuclear bombs, and said that Israel had also used internationally prohibited weapons, including white phosphorus and barrel bombs, as reported by the news outlet.
"What we are witnessing in the West Bank and Jerusalem is the appearance of a new uprising, albeit in scattered waves,” Barghouti said.....................http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20141229/1016378367.html
29/12/14