RAMALLAH, September 16, 2011 (WAFA) – President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that he is going to the United Nations Security Council to get full membership for the state of Palestine.

He said in an address to the Palestinian people on the eve of his departure to New York to attend the UN General Assembly meetings that he will submit the application for membership to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after he finishes his speech at the General Assembly next Friday.

“We are going to the Security Council,” Abbas concluded his speech to a standing ovation and applause. “This is our decision.”

He said that “once I finish my speech, I will submit the application to the UN Secretary General to pass it on to the president of the Security Council.”

What will happen after that, he said, will be later discussed, leaving the door open for different interpretations as to what would the Palestinian Authority’s next move be if the United States vetoes the application at the Security Council, as it has already said it would do.

“We are going to the UN to end 63 years of injustice during which our people have lived under occupation, their rights violated while the entire world, which has created the UN to protect national rights of people, was watching,” he said.

“We are the only people in this world that is still living under occupation,” he said.

Abbas said he was going to the UN “to demand our legitimate right to have full membership for the state of Palestine and to live like the rest of the people in this world in the state of Palestine on the June 4, 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Abbas lashed out at Israel for not giving a chance to the peace process to make headway when it was possible.

“Our efforts to reach an end to occupation through negotiations have reached a deadlock because of Israel’s intransigent policies,” he said, denouncing Israel to failing to implement international agreements and for refusing to halt settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories.

He stated three reasons for choosing the UN option.

First, he said, was US President Barack Obama’s speech at the UN last year during which he declared that he wanted to see a state of Palestine as the newest member of the UN by this time this year.

Second, he said, was the quartet statement of last September that called for negotiations to start during that month and end in September a year later.

Third, the fact that the Palestinian government’s institution building program was completed this September and the World Bank had recognized that the institutions were ready to function as in any normal state.

He comforted critics of the UN bid by stressing that the move will not affect the status of the PLO at the UN. He stressed that the PLO has created the Palestinian Authority and therefore it will remain in its current place as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people everywhere until the conflict is finished and a fully independent and sovereign Palestinian state is created.

He also said that the issue of refugees will not be affected by the decision, and that once Palestine becomes a state, the 7000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails will be considered war prisoners.

In addition, he said, a Palestinian state means Israel would then be in occupation of a state with recognized borders, which means it is violating UN charter, and that negotiations will be between a state that is occupied and an occupying state member of the UN.

Abbas, who said that 126 countries have recognized Palestine so far and which he said was “an indication of the number of countries which sympathize with our right to be independent,” defended his UN move.

He said he was accused of carrying out a unilateral act or seeking to isolate Israel.

“This is not a unilateral act, nor at attempt to isolate Israel,” he said. “We only want to delegitimatize the occupation policy, not Israel.”

Abbas did not want to raise false hopes that by going to the UN a state is going to be immediately born.

“We are not going to get independence right away,” he said. “We will come back to negotiate, but we want to be full members of the UN. We don’t want to raise hopes that we are going to be independent.”

He said, “We are facing a difficult and historic mission. We should not underestimate the obstacles that will be facing us. If we succeed, we should know that the occupation is not going to end the next day. Our next step is not going to be easy. But if we get recognition, then it is recognition that our land is occupied, and not disputed as Israeli officials claim.”

Abbas condemned the rise in Israeli settlers’ violence against the Palestinian people and Israel’s training of dogs and wild pigs to attack Palestinians.

“Settlers attacks are a factor for instability and absence of security in the region,” he said, calling on the Palestinian people not to drawn into a violent response to the settlers’ acts.

“All our acts should be peaceful. They (settlers) should not draw us into becoming like them, to where they want us. We should not give them any chance or pretext to take this opportunity away from us.”

He said, “Not being peaceful will sabotage our efforts and will focus attention on the negative things rather than on the positive things” in the Palestinian drive for independence.

M.S.