Abbas pushes UN statehood plan forward
The Palestinian Authority views Benjamin Netanyahu's government as a hopeless case, so it plans to move forward on four tracks to achieve UN recognition of Palestine by 2015.
"Permanent status negotiations between the state of Palestine and the State of Israel is what we want to see in 2015," a senior political Palestinian source in Ramallah told Al-Monitor. A long monologue followed about Palestinian frustration with reduced international attention to the Palestinian predicament — a frustration shared by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. What the Palestinians see from their telescope is a weaker US President Barack Obama, Europeans horrified by the Islamic State, Israel more messianic than ever and a self-centered Arab world. They now seek to restart negotiations only from a status of equality with Israel.
The Palestinians refuse to remain, from their point of view, the only country in the world under occupation. The old guard of Fatah — the group that served late PLO leader Yasser Arafat — knows it is their last opportunity. Abbas is 79 years old. The young guard is disillusioned with the path of two decades of futile negotiations; some yearn for an intifada, some want to see the more militant Marwan Barghouti as a main leader and others fall into the arms of Hamas. For many in the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership, it's now or never.
