Former envoy Mitchell says US veto won’t stop Palestinian statehood bid

The United States said Thursday it will veto a bid for UN recognition of a Palestinian state if it comes to a vote before the UN Security Council, as the former US special envoy for Middle East peace said there was little chance that Washington could stop the Palestinian UN bid.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said US opposition to such a move by the Palestinians “should not come as a shock.”

“So yes, if something comes to a vote in the UN security council, the US will veto,” she said, according to AFP.

In Ramallah, the Palestinian leadership confirmed on Thursday that it intends to make a formal request that the United Nations accept the state of Palestine as a member.

“We are going to the Security Council to protect the rights of the Palestinian people and the idea of a two-state solution,” president Mahmud Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP after the announcement.

“We don’t want problems with the US administration but we are committed to negotiations based on the 1967 lines and a freeze on (Jewish) settlements,” he said, referring to principles backed by Washington but rejected by Israel.

Nuland said it was still uncertain whether the Palestinian request would come to a vote and said the United States believes “the best route forward is to come back to the negotiating table.”

US State Department officials are to meet on Friday with a Palestinian delegation, the department said separately.

Little chance

Earlier on Thursday, George Mitchell, the former US special envoy for Middle East peace, said there was little chance US officials would be able to persuade Palestinian leaders not to seek greater recognition at the United Nations.

Mitchell, who stepped down in May after more than two years of fruitless efforts to make peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis, was downbeat about the odds of making progress in the coming months but more optimistic over the longer term.

The Palestinians have vowed to upgrade their UN status, either by seeking full United Nations membership for a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and West Bank or recognition as a “non-member state.”

The United States and Israel have argued against this, making the case that the conflict should be resolved in direct negotiations and that taking steps at the United Nations would leave the two sides further apart.

David Hale, Mitchell’s replacement as the US Middle East peace envoy, and White House aide Dennis Ross met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday in the latest US effort to halt the Palestinians’ UN push.

“I think there was and is little likelihood that they will succeed in that effort,” Mitchell said at a conference on peacemaking at Georgetown University in Washington, according to Reuters.

If the Palestinians ignore US and Israeli opposition and pursue full UN membership of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, the bid would likely fail because Washington would veto it in the UN Security Council.

It remains unclear whether the Palestinians will seek full membership, upgraded observer status or both.

Mitchell, who helped broker the agreement that ended the Northern Ireland conflict, earlier told the audience that he saw little chance of progress in the next few months but that he was more optimistic over the longer term.

“There are tremendous obstacles to be overcome, not the least of which is the internal political situation on both sides,” Mitchell said.

“We in this country see our country deeply divided on major political issues (and) ought not to be surprised similar circumstances exist in other countries and make it difficult for leaders to take the steps needed to get from their current positions to what I think is the essential outcome,” he added.

“In the short term, and I mean by that the next few months, it's difficult to be overly optimistic, to put it mildly,” he said.

“But I believe that in the medium and longer term there is a basis for believing that they will be able to take those steps primarily because the current circumstance, in my judgment, is unsustainable and both societies face very large risks from a continuation of the conflict.”