Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas is launching in New York this week a campaign to join the United Nations as a full member state. US President Barak Obama has already said he will âvetoâ the Palestinian UN bid and has urged Abbas to drop his plans and go back to the negotiating table.
However, itâs clear for many that Mr.Obama has been pushed into a corner. Rejecting the Palestinian bid would mean conveying a risky message to the Arab world. Doing otherwise would go against the politics of his own re-election bid next year.
But what does Europe think? The position of many European governments is not clear yet. However, Sarkozy in his speech on Wednesday suggested that upgrading Palestineâs status from âobserving entityâ to âobserving stateâ is a god compromise to start developing a concrete timeline of negotiations. This would include 1 month to start bilateral talks, 6 months to deal with security and borders and 1 year to sign the final agreement. It remains unclear if European leaders will ...
