WASHINGTON — Facing a potentially destabilizing diplomatic clash, President Barack Obama heads to the United Nations next week already looking beyond a potential vote on Palestinian statehood and toward laying the groundwork for the resumption of stalled Middle East peace talks.
Obama had hoped to focus his efforts at the meetings of the U.N. General Assembly on boosting the standing of Libya’s former rebel leaders and touting the United Nations’ role in dismantling Moammar Khadafy’s regime. But success in Libya seems likely to be overshadowed by a Palestinian push for full U.N. membership — an effort over which Obama has little influence.
White House officials say it is still unclear what course the Palestinians will take in New York next week. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that he will ask the U.N. Security Council to endorse his statehood bid, though he said he was open to other unspecified options.
“We don’t want to raise expectations by saying we are going to come back with full independence,” Abbas said in an address to Palestinian leaders. He said he was going to the United Nations to “ask the world to shoulder its responsibilities” by backing the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
Abbas urged the Palestinian people to refrain from violence, saying “anything other than peaceful moves will harm us and sabotage our endeavors.”
And he asserted twice that his aim was not to isolate or delegitimize Israel — a charge Israel often levels at the Palestinians and their supporters.
The U.S. has pledged to veto the statehood bid, and the Obama administration has senior diplomats in the region making a last-ditch effort to persuade the Palestinians to drop the measure.
But the White House insists its main focus is not on what happens at the U.N. but on resuming direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. U.S. officials contend that those negotiations provide the only credible pathway for the Palestinians to achieve statehood.
“Whatever happens at the United Nations, there’s going to have to be a process to get these two parties back to the table when we get beyond next week,” White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said Friday.
As part of the effort to revive the stalled negotiations, Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the U.N. meeting next week. But whether Obama can make any progress in convincing Netanyahu to return to talks is uncertain, and it’s unclear what bargaining power the U.S. has.
There are currently no plans for Obama to meet with Abbas in New York, and the White House said the two leaders had not spoken recently.
Obama is due to arrive in New York on Monday evening, after giving a speech in the Washington area announcing his deficit-cutting recommendations for a joint congressional committee.
