...an idea whose time has gone...
this fall.
Nabil Shaath, head of a Paleostinian delegation that met on Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said "our plan to go to the United Nations will get support from Russia."
He didn't specify exactly what he meant by Russia's "support," and the Russian Foreign Ministry wouldn't comment on Shaath's claim.
UN membership requires a recommendation from the Security Council and approval by two-thirds of the General Assembly, or 128 countries.
With the US poised to veto the approval of Paleostinian statehood at the UN Security Council, the Paleostinians plan to turn to the General Assembly, whose decision would be nonbinding but could send a strong international message and put heavy pressure on Israel.
Shaath, an aide to Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas,
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
said, however, that the Paleostinian campaign for statehood will not replace his nation's determination to resume stalled peace talks with Israel.
"Going to the United Nations is not a substitute for going to negotiations," he said, voicing hope that Russia's mediation will help resume peace talks.
The Paleostinians insist they will not resume peace talks until Israel stops building settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem -- areas it captured in the 1967 war and which the Paleostinians claim for their future state.
Israel maintains that the Paleostinians should not be setting conditions for talks and that settlements didn't stop them from negotiating in the past.
Russia is a member of the so-called "
Quartet"... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy....
of Mideast peace makers along with the United States, the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
and the United Nations. The group is set to meet in Washington next week to spur the resumption of the talks.
Lavrov said the aim of talks by the Mideast Quartet is the creation of an "independent, democratic Paleostinian state."