Jordan submits Palestinian proposal to Security Council

UNITED NATIONS — Jordan submitted late Monday to the UN Security Council (UNSC) the final proposal for a resolution that sets a deadline to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, presented by Palestine and endorsed by 22 Arab countries.

The Security Council was due to vote later Tuesday (midnight Amman time, 2200 GMT) on the draft resolution on Palestinian statehood upon a request from Jordan, Agence France-Presse reported.

"We have decided that we are going to pass to a vote at the Security Council on the resolution," Jordanian’s UN Ambassador Dina Kawar told reporters.

The Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported that the filing of the draft came after a pan-Arab meeting Jordan, the only Arab country represented at the UNSC, gathered at UN headquarters to discuss the Palestinian request.

The Arab ambassadors endorsed the Palestinian amendments to the suggested resolution that would call for an end to Israel's occupation within three years, a proposal strongly opposed by Israel and the United States and virtually certain to be defeated, according to The Associated Press.

Kawar said ahead of the meeting that Jordan advised against “rushing things” but would comply with the Arab League’s decisions and respond to Palestinians’ requests.

The draft resolution, obtained by AP, affirms the urgent need to achieve "a just, lasting and comprehensive peaceful solution" to the decades-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict within 12 months and sets a December 31, 2017 deadline for Israel's occupation to end.

It calls for an independent state of Palestine to be established within the June 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and security arrangements “including through a third-party presence”. It demands “a just solution” to all other outstanding issues including Palestinian refugees, prisoners in Israeli jails and water.

Even if the resolution musters the minimum nine required “yes” votes, the United States, Israel’s closest ally, is certain to veto it if necessary. The US insists there must be a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Kawar said Palestinian and Jordanian leaders would be contacting each other “to find the best time to cast the vote in the Security Council on the amended version”.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said before the Arab group met that the revised resolution would be submitted Monday and voted on Tuesday.

Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told reporters after the meeting that a vote “could happen tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow”. But Kawar, when asked whether the vote could be put off until after January 1 said: “Everything is possible.” 

Five newly elected members joining the Security Council on Thursday are considered more supportive of the Palestinians than the five members leaving the council and could give them the nine “yes” votes to force a US veto.

US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke told reporters in Washington on Monday that the new draft resolution “is not something that we would support, and other countries share the same concerns that we have”.

“We think it sets arbitrary deadlines for reaching a peace agreement and for Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank, and those are more likely to curtail useful negotiations than to bring them to a successful conclusion,” Rathke said. “Further, we think that the resolution fails to account for Israel’s legitimate security needs.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Monday that if the Security Council doesn’t reject the resolution, “we will”.

The Palestinian Authority is “seeking to impose on us a diktat that would undermine Israel’s security, put its future in peril”, he said. “Israel will oppose conditions that endanger our future.”

Netanyahu said Israel expects at least “the responsible members” of the international community to vigorously oppose the resolution “because what we need always is direct negotiations and not imposed conditions”.

Mansour, the Palestinian envoy, has said the Palestinians can’t return “to the same cycle of failed negotiations”, which he says Israel uses to entrench its occupation. He has urged international support for the resolution setting a 2017 deadline for a complete Israeli withdrawal.

The Palestinians initially circulated a draft resolution on October 1 asking the council to set a deadline of November 2016 for an Israeli withdrawal from all Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. France had been working for a UN resolution aimed at restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, setting a two-year deadline for success.