Jordan has submitted a draft resolution on ending Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands captured in 1967 to the U.N. Security Council for a possible vote.
The resolution, submitted on Dec. 17, wants Israeli security forces withdrawn no later than the end of 2017.
Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour says the Arab-backed resolution does not close the door on further negotiations on the issue, including with the United States. The U.S., as a permanent council member, often has vetoed measures targeting Israel in the past.
The Palestinians have been pressing for some sort of action in the U.N.’s most powerful body. Council member Jordan sponsored the resolution after a day of talks among Arab states.
Earlier in the week, the Palestinian Authority was planning to submit its own draft resolution. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, it called for recognizing the 1967 borders as a basis for any future peace agreement, in addition to all previous international agreements regarding the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also acknowledged previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements, including the Oslo Accords, Palestinian officials said, and U.N. Resolution 181, the 1947 partition plan, which refers to a Jewish state alongside an Arab state.
At that point, a senior Palestinian official admitted that they did not have the votes to push their resolution through the Security Council, but they were moving ahead with it anyway.
Saeb Erekat told a Nazareth-based radio station on Dec. 15 that Palestinians had not secured the necessary nine votes from the 15-member council, according to Haaretz.
Meanwhile, several European nations are formulating an alternate proposal calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state through negotiations within two years. — j. wire services