RAMALLAH, March 29, 2011 (WAFA) - Israel threatened more than 30 countries, mainly members of the European Union, to take unilateral measures if a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders is recognized in September, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.
It said the Israeli foreign ministry sent firm instructions to Israeli ambassadors in the 30 countries to launch a diplomatic campaign against Palestinian efforts to win recognition of a Palestinian state during the next United Nations General Assembly meeting.
It said Israeli diplomats have warned that recognition of the Palestinian state would encourage the Palestinians to forgo negotiations and the peace process, which may eventually lead to violence.
While the Israel government had not yet decided what steps to take in response to possible international recognition of a Palestinian state, right wing groups are thinking of ways to respond, including applying Israeli Law in the West Bank and annexing Jewish settlements, said the newspaper.
Israel fears September 2011 because US President Barack Obama had suggested at the UN General Assembly in 2010 the possibility of a Palestinian state becoming a full member of the UN by 2011.
Palestinian-Israeli talks, which started in September, were supposed to end a year later if it was not for Israel’s resumption of settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem shortly after the negotiations had resumed which was the reason to suspend them.
Also Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s “Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State” two-year program is supposed to be completed by the end of August.
President Mahmoud Abbas told Yossi Belin, a former Israeli lawmaker, during a meeting in Ramallah on Sunday that he will not resume negotiations after September, said the Israeli paper. It added that Abbas may engage in three months of talks with Israel before September if Israel halts settlement construction, said the Israeli newspaper.
It also quoted whom it described as senior Palestinian sources as saying that Abbas may even defer efforts to ask for recognition of a Palestinian state it there was progress in these talks.
R.S./M.A.
