RAMALLAH
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas insisted on Thursday on taking Israel to the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) by the end of the month, despite a request by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to delay the move until early next year.
"We are determined to get a UNSC resolution to specify a deadline for ending the Israeli occupation," Abbas told a group of Palestinian businessmen at a meeting in Ramallah.
He said the U.S. wants the PA to postpone the move, expected later this month, until next year.
"Kerry made that request during our recent meeting in Cairo," Abbas added.
"It's like a movie I've seen many times before," he said referring to pressure tactics used by the U.S. to forestall the move.
"All we want from the Security Council is [to back] the U.S.'s two-state solution, nothing more," added the Palestinian leader.
Palestinians plan to present a draft resolution at the UNSC to bring the Israeli occupation to an end by 2016 and establish a sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
On Wednesday, Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Kerry was seeking to give fresh impetus to stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace talks in order to counter the planned Palestinian draft resolution.
U.S.-brokered direct Palestinian-Israeli talks came to halt in April after Israel failed to honor an earlier promise to release a number of Palestinian prisoners.
The roots of the current conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous "Balfour Declaration," called for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."
Jewish immigration rose considerably under the British administration of Palestine, which was consolidated by a League of Nations "mandate" in 1922.
In 1948, with the end of the mandate, a new state – Israel – was declared inside historical Palestine.
As a result, some 700,000 Palestinians fled their homes, or were forcibly expelled, while hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns were razed to the ground by Jewish forces.
The Palestinian diaspora has since become one of the largest in the world. Palestinian refugees are currently spread across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and other countries, while many have settled in refugee camps in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip.
For many Palestinians, the right to return to their homes in historical Palestine – a right enshrined in U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 – remains a key demand.
Palestinians demand the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, with East Jerusalem – currently occupied by Israel – as its capital.
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