RAMALLAH: Media sources report that Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Malki has set off towards New York for preparation and to finalize the details of the upcoming statehood vote in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). A simple majority vote would upgrade Palestine to a nonmember state, a status also held by the Vatican. Presently, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is a non-state observer. The statehood bid is seen by many analysts and commentators as a last ditch attempt to strike a two-state solution and put an end to the six decade statelessness of Palestinians, establishing a sovereign state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip based on modifications of the 1967 borders. Its capital is intended to be in East Jerusalem, also under internationally illegal Israeli occupation. Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem during the June 1967 War, along with the EgyptianSinai and the Syrian Golan Heights. The Sinai was returned as part of negotiations that led to a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt some years later, but the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem remain under Israeli control until this day. Israel and the United States oppose the Palestinian Authority's UN initiative, calling it “unilateral" and counterproductive. The Palestinian Authority, however, argues that times are desperate as illegally Israeli settlements continue to spread rapidly throughout the West Bank, particularly the Jordan Valley, and effectively render the two-state solution impossible. In the past, Hamas, the militant Islamist organization that de facto governs the Gaza Strip, opposed the PA's attempts to gain international recognition in the UN. On Monday, however, the PA's official media site said Hamas leader Khaled Meshal phoned PA President Mahmoud Abbas to express his support. President Abbas is expected to arrive at the United Nations on November 29th.
