U.N. Set To Pass Mideast Peace Resolution

(CBS/AP)  For the first time in five years, the United Nations Security Council was poised to adopt a resolution calling for collective peace in the Middle East on Saturday.

Council members met in a closed-door emergency session to discuss a U.S.-drafted resolution, strongly backed by Russia, which appeared to have near-unanimous support.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, said a vote on the resolution by the 15-nation council is expected on Tuesday.

The two-page draft resolution calls on Israelis and Palestinians "to fulfill their obligations" under last year's peace deal brokered at Annapolis, Maryland, and for all nations and international groups "to contribute to an atmosphere conducive to negotiations."

"With a year-end deadline looming, the four parties involved in the Middle East Quartet peace negotiations (the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations) met on Saturday and introduced a draft Security Council Resolution, which will be discussed on Monday with the expectation of a vote on the Ministerial level on Tuesday," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk from the U.N.

"The objective of the Security Council action is to get the stalled talks back on track and show support for a formal meeting in Moscow in 2009," Falk reported, "and the participation of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is intended to set the negotiations on a better footing before the Bush Administration leaves office."

"With support from both the U.S and Russia, the Security Council is likely to get the Resolution passed which supports the peace process and the goal of achieving a two-state solution," Falk added.

The U.S.-sponsored Annapolis talks had set a goal of achieving a substantive peace accord before President George W. Bush leaves office in January, a scenario that appears all but impossible now.

Now, the U.S. focus is on a smooth handover to President-elect Barack Obama that keeps up the momentum for peace.

"We believe it is very important at this time to recognize the process that has been made," said Ambassador Khalilzad.

The Middle East peace negotiations have been stalled by a spike in violence in the region and the lack of agreement about resettlement of Palestinians, the fate of Jerusalem and Israeli settlements - and the objective of the talks is to not lose time because of new governments in the U.S and Israel as well as possible Palestinian elections.

"The Bush administration has an interest in passing on to President-elect Obama a peace process that is ongoing and not stalled," said Falk.

Khalilzad announced the draft resolution, symbolically, with Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin while addressing reporters after the council session.

Churkin said the draft resolution was presented to council members Saturday for the first time as a culmination of the close work between the U.S. and Russia, which have been at serious odds much of this past year over Zimbabwe, Georgia and other issues.

"Of course we all cannot be satisfied with where the peace process is at now," Ambassador Churkin said, "but considerable efforts have been made over the past 12 months or so, and we believe that the effort has to be pinned down and it has to continue with our support, which may be there because of some political circumstances - change of administration of the United States, elections in Israel, possible elections in the Palestinian autonomy - but despite all those circumstances, we believe that there must be continued effort."

French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, whose nation holds the E.U. presidency until the end of the year, said France has been urging for a long time that the Security Council get involved in the Mideast peace process. "So for us, it could be a very important milestone," he said.

Before the council votes on the Middle East resolution, Libya has asked that it include language directed against Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The Arab peace plan calls for Arab recognition of the Jewish state in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from all lands captured in the 1967 war.

Not since November 2003 has the council passed a resolution on the Middle East that calls for collective peace by insisting on a two-nation solution for Israelis and Palestinians, according to Security Council Report, an independent not-for-profit organization.

"The Security Council for a long time has not been able to pronounce itself on anything on the Middle East process or the situation in the Middle East," said Ambassador Churkin, "so to draft this political statement coming out of the Security Council at the crucial junction will not be insignificant achievement."

The council needs only nine members to pass the new draft resolution, but diplomats said that with a resolution on such a complex issue as this one, some of its strength would be derived from passing it unanimously.

Even if that does not occur, the resolution appears to be headed toward near-unanimous passage, several Security Council diplomats said.

With all five of the council's permanent members on board, there appears to be no threat that any of them - the U.S., Russia, China, Britain or France - will use their veto power.

[impeach_o]

-Israel needs to ease the Strangulation of the Palestinians in Gaza. AIPAC''''s Israel practices the same APARTHEID system South Africa used to practice over it Black population, yet worse.

-Shame on you!


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Posted by trishab59 at 03:03 AM : Dec 16, 2008
+ report abuse


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WHAT YOU NEED TO DO is demand tht the rest of middle east STOP strangulating these poor palestinians to further thier own hatred and fear of the jewish state..

no one wants to get rockets fired at them..nor would anybody want to strap bombs on themselves..

outside forces are working hard on this one...and the liberal medie and the liberal masses back by the UN is making *** sure this continues

[earth562]

http://english.aljazeera.net/ne
Posted by trishab59 at 03:03 AM : Dec 16, 2008

and I trust Al-Jazeera for my news like the police trusted Al-Capone

[earth562]

Shame on you!


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Posted by trishab59 at 03:03 AM : Dec 16, 2008

Yes Trisha !

Like you have a moral highground with the swastikas in your kitchen

[mrmeatspin]

a lot of islamic nations in middle east and anti-semite conspiracy theorist liberal morons WOULD NOT LIKE A UNIFED jewish and palestinian state..

[metsobitso]

Hagel, Hagel, Hagel - Israel must get out of Palestinian territories and go back to their pre 67 borders.

[ephd]

How come I get the feeling that you''''re just a bigot who doesn''''t like tan skinned people.

Posted by cdfoxtrot6 at 10:21 PM : Dec 14, 2008

How come I get the feeling that you''''re just a bigot that doesn''''t like people with last names like schwartz and horowitz....

[mrjustice1]

ISRAEL''S RIGHT AS A COUNTRY - PERENNIAL ARAB ARGUMENT
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Yes - virtually all people of different ethnicities fought for nationhood.

Haven''t the Jews from all of the Arab countries been displaced and made into refugees after many centuries of being a robbed, beaten, humiliated, murdered and otherwise abused minority by Arabs, long before the State of Israel was reborn?

The facts are, that a substantial number of the 22 or so Arab countries, refuse to ''permit'' even one small country or homeland for the Jews, even though Israel consists of only about one quarter percent in land area. That means the Arab countries have about 99.75% or 400 times the land area when compared to Israel.

In addition, the Arab States refused to accept the two-state solution in 1948, thereby forcing the Jews to fight for only about 20% of the original land of Palestine.

Please correct these figures if they are incorrect.

Ever since, as well as for centuries prior, the Arabs have wrongfully used emotionally-charged religion as a political power tool to teach more and more hate and incitement against the Jews.

[jackobyte]

A pity the 1948 UN resolution did''nt plunk israel in the middle of Iowa.

[earth562]

The 1948 UN resolution that allowed for Israel to exist at all, required the creation of a Palestinian state, at the same time. To deny the Palestinians their home is to remove the legitimacy of the state of Israel.



Posted by cdfoxtrot6 at 09:49 PM : Dec 14, 2008
+ report abuse

Go and actually read your history please.

The Palestinians have 83 % of the Palestinian Mandate and that includes Jordan, The West Bank and Gaza.

Israel signed an agreement to carve out the British Mandate and have two states in 1948.

The Arabs did NOT agree and decided to "push the Jews to the sea"

Did you get that ?

The Arabs fought wars in 48/56/67/73 to eliminate the State of Israel off the map.

They LOST..got it ? ...Lost

Do me a favor and demand from the UN that 3 million Germans who LOST the 2nd World War get their properties back from the Poles also.

and please ask the UN that the French get back Indochina

and ask the UN to give back Taiwan to Mainland China

and ask the UN to please reverse things and give back the land that was "stolen" from over 56 countrys in the 20th century.

[earth562]

Palestinians deserve their own state - and that''''s the policy of both the UN and the US government. So, if you oppose that policy it means you oppose our democratically elected government.




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Posted by cdfoxtrot6 at 10:20 PM : Dec 14, 2008

So how come Arafat basically ended further negotiations with Bill Clinton in the 90s ?

How come the "Palestinians" were not demanding a state when Jordan "occupied" the West bank or Egypt ..the Gaza Strip between 1948-1967 ?

How come after the end of the Six Day War did and the defrat of the Arab Armys, Israel formally offered peace and all lands captured for a true peace.

The Arabs and Palestinians replied with the famous " 3 NOs of Khartoum

the leaders of thirteen Arab states gathered at a summit conference in Khartoum, Sudan from August 29 to September 1. There they pledged to continue their struggle against Israel.

Influenced by Nasser, "their conditions were quite specific:
NO peace with Israel

NO negotiations with Israel

NO recognition of Israel, and ''maintenance of the rights of the Palestinian people in their nation.''

The Khartoum Declaration was the first serious warning to the Israelis that their expectation of an imminent ''phone call'' from the Arab world might be a pipe dream"