It is high time for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to stand up and be counted, now that all the mediatory attempts by the United States have not yielded any tangible results for a Palestinian-Israeli peace settlement.

More so, it is seen unlikely now that the Obama administration will carry a whip in its hand and guide the Palestinian or the Israeli negotiators to agree on a reasonable and fair settlement at a time when the country is in the midst of a crucial congressional election that might make Obama’s Democratic Party lose control of the Senate, a powerful legislative body.

The Obama administration is seen as hardly effective in its foreign policy, especially in the Arab world, where a threatening sectarian upheaval has been raging, as well as regarding the Ukrainian conflict, where Russia plays a leading role.

Furthermore, the influential pro-Israel lobby, known as the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is expected to support candidates of the Republican Party, as Israel has more supporters among them than among the Democrats.

Actually, the lukewarm relationship between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama is another factor that may tip the balance against the Democrats in the election.

This is one good reason why the Palestinian leadership should pursue its bid for membership in the United Nations directly and immediately, but not necessarily with US help, which obviously is not supportive of this approach yet.

In this respect, Palestinians should expect full support from the 22-member League of Arab states, as well as from Islamic states elsewhere. At the same time, it should not come as a surprise if many European countries would also jump on the bandwagon, since many Europeans were aghast by Israel’s massacres in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Palestinians should not be fearful of failure in applying for membership in the UN Security Council, a step they are entitled to undertake since they are now a “non-state member”.

Nabil Shaath, a former Palestinian foreign minister, said the Palestinians can approach the International Criminal Court with a request to hold Israeli leaders accountable for war crimes during their invasion of Gaza.

It is a shame that the NATO summit, now under way in Wales, will not address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, considering that Israel has been occupying the West Bank since 1967 and there is no sign whatsoever that it is willing to withdraw from this area where now more than 500,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements.

Adding insult to injury, Israel this week took a shocking step, claiming nearly 400 hectares of the occupied West Bank, near Bethlehem, the biggest expropriation in 30 years.

The American reaction to this step was to issue a meek rebuke, calling on Israel “to reverse this decision”. In contrast, the European Union declared that “it will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties”.

Yariv Oppenheimer, director general of Peace Now, an Israeli group that opposes Israeli settlement activities, said that instead of strengthening the Palestinian moderates, Netanyahu “turns his back on the Palestinian Authority and sticks a political knife in [its] back”.

He told Israel Radio: “Since the 1980s, we don’t remember a declaration of such dimensions.”

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu recalled in an article recently published in Haaretz, a liberal Israeli newspaper, that Nelson Mandela had once said that South Africans would not feel free until Palestinians were free.

Tutu added: “He might have added that the liberation of Palestine will liberate Israel, too.”

Coincidentally, a Palestinian group affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, called for national unity at a rally this week in downtown Gaza City.

Kayed Al Ghoul, senior PFLP leader, said that the results of the seven-week war with Israel should pave the way for “national unity”, based on partnership.

The writer is a Washington-based columnist.