Despite repeated requests by the U.S. administration to refrain from doing so, the PLO will go forward this month with its threatened introduction of a resolution into the UN Security Council. The resolution will demand the “end of Israeli occupation.”
A draft of the resolution obtained by AFP calls for the “full withdrawal of Israel, the occupying power, from all of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, as rapidly as possible and to be fully completed within a specified timeframe, not to exceed November 2016.”
PLO Secretary General Yasser Abed Rabbo said that despite intense pressure, his organization decided Wednesday, Oct. 15, to push ahead with the UN initiative.
“The political council of the PLO decided during its meeting last night… to go to the UN Security Council with the aim of getting a resolution passed to end the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories… by the end of this month,” Abed Rabbo said at a news conference in Ramallah, according to the Maan Palestinian Arab news site.
The U.S. is fully expected to veto the resolution, but it is worth watching to see if the U.S. will follow through on its threats to cut U.S. aid to the Palestinian Arabs. The U.S. just announced an additional $212 million in aid for Gaza.