The US is continuing its efforts to prevent the Palestinian Authority from
bringing a resolution to the UN General Assembly upgrading the its status in
that body to a non-member observer state, a senior US official said
Monday.
The official’s comments came even as PA President Mahmoud Abbas
went to Jordan Monday, from where he is set to travel to New York to submit the
Palestinian bid on Thursday.
“Our message to the Palestinians has not
changed,” the senior official said. “We believe that bringing forward a
resolution on statehood is unwise, does not help bring them closer to their
legitimate aspirations, and will create an environment less positive for
negotiations. We are trying to prevent this from happening, don’t want it to
happen, and it has not happened yet.”
One Israeli official said that the
US was working actively at the UN to try and use procedural measures to block
Abbas from even being able to bring the resolution to a vote. He said the US was
working as well in various key capitals around the world to convince other
countries not to support it.
Although the 27-member EU has not yet
decided how it would vote on the resolution, the Israeli official said the
majority of EU states would like to see a consensus position, and that if a
consensus could be reached, it would likely be to abstain on the
matter.
“There is still a concerted effort to reach a consensus,” one
official said. “The Europeans love a consensus.”
The EU failed to agree
last November when the Palestinians gained statehood admission into UNESCO, with
five EU countries voting against the move, 11 supporting and another 11
abstaining.
That Palestinian move led to an automatic halting of US funds
to UNESCO, as mandated by US law.
The senior American official said
whether the US would have to cut off funding to the UN General Assembly if it
adopted the Palestinian resolution depended on “what is in the resolution and
what form it takes.”
Congress, he added, “has already said there will be
repercussions in our system.”
The official said that the US was “as
supportive of a two-state solution as it has ever been, and intends on working on
it.”
But, he added, “this step runs counter and makes things harder.”