Erekat: In elections, Israelis will choose between being partners or occupiers
Palestinian negotiator says Abbas won't stop UN move to set deadline for Israeli withdrawal, because that would tell right-wing it could build in settlements with impunity.
"This is the Israelis' decisive year, in which they need to decide if they want to be partners or occupiers," former Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters on Tuesday.
Erekat said he was closely following the recent political upheaval in Israel, and said he has spoken to Israeli political officials, though he refused to say whether Labor leader Isaac Herzog or Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni were among them.
"This is the Israelis' time to choose and I hope they don't choose the settlements, they choose peace, they don't choose dictates, they choose negotiations," he said. "We want the Israelis to elect a partner that will make peace with us and recognize the two-state solution."
However, Erekat stressed that Israel going to elections changes nothing for the Palestinians, who will push ahead with their efforts to pass a resolution at the UN Security Council setting a November 2016 deadline for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
He said the draft resolution will be submitted within the next two weeks, and no later than December 25. "I believe if we keep working to achieve a Security Council resolution to set a defined schedule for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, which will lead to us joining treaties and international bodies, and to a situation in which the European parliaments continue recognizing Palestine, then the people in Israel will tell the right-wing, 'is this what you're bringing upon us?'"
Erekat said postponing the Palestinians' UN move because of the elections in Israel will send a message to the right-wing that it could continue building in settlements and continue the rest of the Israeli activities in the West Bank with impunity.
He said he hoped no member state in the UN Security Council vetoes the resolution should it pass, hinting to the United States that if it vetoes the motion - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will, on the same day, apply to join 22 international treaties, including the Treaty of Rome which will pave the way for the Palestinians to become members of the International Criminals Court at the Hague.
"In 2015, anyone who commits crimes in Israel will have to answer for it," Erekat said.
On Monday, the Palestinian Authority came one step closer to joining the ICC when it was approved as an observer state.
The Palestinians' official acceptance as an observer at the two-week meeting came in a procedural move at the opening session of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute that established the ICC.
Tina Intelmann, the assembly's outgoing president, read a list of states that have not signed or ratified the statute that requested to participate as observers including Russia, China, India and the state of Palestine. With a bang of the gavel, all those on the list were approved by consensus.
William Pace, convener of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, which includes 2,500 civil society organizations in 150 countries, said "the significance is both the request and approval without objection," though he said there were no grounds to object.
That's because the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in November 2012 to upgrade the Palestinians' status from a UN observer to a non-voting member state, which allows it to be an observer under the rules of the Assembly of States Parties and to ratify the Rome statute and to accept its jurisdiction, Pace said. Previously, the Palestinians could attend as an "entity" without those rights.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
