Palestinian Leaders May Seek UN Backing for Independent State

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Palestinian leaders will meet Dec. 15 to discuss healing the rift between the Hamas and Fatah factions and a plan to seek United Nations recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

“We will discuss reconciliation between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah party, Israel’s continued construction of illegal settlements, the expiry of the president’s term and may decide on a plan that demands United Nations recognition,” Munib Masri, a Palestine Central Council member, said in an interview yesterday on a flight from Amman to Beirut.

“We will ask the UN Security Council to endorse a two- state solution with east Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, to compensate Palestinian refugees and affirm their right to return to their homeland,” said Masri. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will attend the council meeting, which will probably be held in the West Bank.

The council wants Israel to return to the borders it had prior to the 1967 Middle East war. If a Palestinian state isn’t within reach, the Palestinian Authority should be dissolved, he said.

“If Israel remains steadfast in building settlements, then we will seek a one-state solution that is based on a timetable,” Masri said, referring to an agreement under which Palestinians and Israelis would share power in a single state.

Palestinians, who seek to establish an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, areas that were captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, have made a total construction freeze on settlements by Israel a condition for resuming peace talks.

Settlements Still Expanding

Abbas has said an Israeli initiative to halt settlement expansions for 10 months is insufficient because it allows for construction in east Jerusalem and the completion of 3,000 homes in the West Bank already approved for building.

President Barack Obama has sought to revive peace talks by demanding Israeli curbs on West Bank settlements.

“I want President Barack Obama to be brave and stick to his principles and understand that a solution to the Palestinian conflict is in America’s national security interest,” Masri said.

“If we see that a two-state solution is not in the horizon, then the PA should be dismantled and the Palestinian people should decide this through a referendum,” said Masri, who was a confidante of former Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

Last month, Abbas said he was withdrawing from elections scheduled for January, adding a new hurdle to Middle East peace efforts and triggering speculation about who might succeed him.

The Abbas Vacuum

Abbas, who succeeded Arafat in 2005, has faced growing Palestinian criticism, especially after agreeing in October to postpone a United Nations debate on a report accusing Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during their three-week conflict in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. He later reversed himself, and the UN General Assembly on Nov. 5 adopted a resolution calling for Israeli and Palestinian authorities to begin probes within three months.

Masri said the planned council meeting wants to determine how to avoid a vacuum after Abbas’s presidential term expires.

Masri, who headed a delegation of independent Palestinians in March at meetings in Cairo to reconcile Hamas with Abbas’s Fatah party, said ending the rift among the two is imperative to realizing a Palestinian state and dealing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“In the absence of reconciliation, the worst is to come because of Netanyahu’s intransigent government,” Masri said. “The West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza should be one connected territory.”

The Islamic Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, has challenged the legitimacy of Abbas’s West Bank-based government, and Egyptian-mediated efforts to reconcile them haven’t been successful. Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in June 2007, routing the Fatah forces of Abbas, has said it will bar Gaza residents from voting in January elections.

Masri, 73, is the chairman of Palestine Development and Investment Ltd., the largest private investor by initial investment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He was ranked the 44th richest Arab with a net worth of $1.6 billion, according to a survey by Arabian Business magazine last year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Massoud A. Derhally in Beirut, Lebanon at mderhally@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net.