UN to Vote on Palestinian Demand For Israeli Withdrawal

United Nations: The UN Security Council was expected to vote on Tuesday on a Palestinian draft resolution that calls for Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories by late 2017, a measure that is unlikely to pass due to strong opposition from Washington.

Jordan's UN Ambassador Dina Kawar said the vote would take place at 5 pm Eastern Time.

The United States and Israel oppose the Palestinian draft.

Washington, council diplomats say, has made clear it does not want such a resolution put to a vote before the Israeli election in March.

Britain has also said it cannot support the proposal.

Palestinian UN Observer Riyad Mansour, asked why his government was pushing ahead with a measure that faced almost certain defeat, said: "If one party decides for whatever reason that they do not want to go along with this massive support by the international community to find a just solution to this conflict, to try to save the two-state solution ... then it is not for lack of giving time as Arabs, it is not a lack of flexibility."

The United States reiterated that it did not support the measure. If necessary, council diplomats said, the US delegation will veto the Palestinian draft.

The US State Department stopped short of explicitly threatening to use its veto but made clear it did not want the proposal to be accepted.

"We think this has been rushed, and that is why we do not support it, neither on substantive nor on the grounds of timing," State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said. He added that the resolution, if adopted, would set "arbitrary deadlines," a concern also raised by the British.

Rathke told reporters in Washington that US Secretary of State John Kerry has spoken with more than a dozen senior officials from nations around the world over the past 48 hours.

"The Secretary's sense from talking to his counterparts is that there is ... a lot of recognition that this particular resolution ... is unconstructive and ill-timed," he said.

ISRAEL: UN VOTE WILL DEEPEN CONFLICT

In order to pass, a resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes from the council's five permanent members.

The Palestinian draft resolution calls for negotiations to be based on territorial lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war.

It also calls for a peace deal within 12 months and ending Israeli occupation by the end of 2017.

An earlier Palestinian draft called for Jerusalem to be the shared capital of Israel and a Palestinian state. The draft to be voted on reverts to a harder line, saying only that East Jerusalem will be Palestine's capital and calling for an end to Israeli settlement building.

Council diplomats say it is not clear the Palestinians can get nine yes votes for their resolution, which would force the United States, Israel's closest ally, to decide whether to veto it.

The last time the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution was in February 2011. It cast the sole vote against a draft resolution that condemned Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory.

Washington has often used its veto to strike down resolutions critical of Israel.

The Israeli government has said that a Security Council vote, following the collapse in April of U.S.-brokered talks on Palestinian statehood, would deepen the conflict.

"We will continue to rebuff vigorously attempts to force terms that would jeopardize our security," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, referring to the Palestinian UN bid, said in public remarks to his cabinet on Sunday.

The Palestinians, frustrated by the lack of progress in peace talks, have sought to internationalize the issue by seeking UN membership and recognition of statehood via membership in international organizations.

Israel, which pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, has said its eastern border would be indefensible if it withdrew completely from the West Bank.