Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman plans to hold an urgent meeting of Israeli Ambassadors in Europe in Vienna on Thursday over the Palestinian bid for non-member state status at the United Nations General Assembly this month.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in turn, was in Jordan on Monday to consult with the Arab League on how best to lobby world leaders in advance of the vote.
The PA is likely to make their bid in the latter part of the month. The move will upgrade the Palestinian standing at the United Nations. It is seen as a de-facto declaration of statehood, even though it would not grant them full UN membership. It could, however, allow them the right to legally pursue Israel though the International Criminal Court.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to achieve statehood through a negotiated solution rather than through unilateral measures.
He publicly invited him to sit down and negotiate without pre-conditions on Sunday at the weekly cabinet meeting and on Wednesday during a press conference in Paris.
On Friday, however, Abbas told Channel 2 that the Palestinians intend to press forward with their United Nations bid.
He added that he would only negotiate with the understanding that the two-state solution would be based on the pre-1967 lines.
Netanyahu has said a return to the lines that this would leave Israel with indefensible borders. He has added that the issue of borders should be dealt with through negotiations.
But the Palestinians believe that they can only negotiate once the pre-1967 lines have been acknowledged as the border of their future state.
Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said any direct talks must await the U.N. vote, which the Palestinians look certain to win given that they have majority support in the UN General Assembly. The vote can-not be vetoed.
"When we return from the U.N. General Assembly and are a non-member state based on 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as the capital, the way to direct negotiations will be open to achieve security and stability on this basis," Abu Rdainah said on Monday.
Netanyahu told Reuters television in Jerusalem, "Yesterday I invited President Abbas to start direct negotiations without preconditions.
"Unfortunately, I have still not heard back from the Palestinian side ... I hope they won't go to one-sided action in the U.N. because that will only push peace back and will only produce unnecessary instability," he said.
Israel has warned that the bid is a breach of the Oslo Accord, in which binds both parties to resolve the issue through a negotiated solution. It has threatened punitive measures if the PA moves forward with its bid.
It has asked other countries to try and pressure the Palestinians to drop their bid. On Thursday in Vienna, Lieberman is likely to help the ambassadors hone their message, that in spite of Abbas’ words, the measure is part of the Palestinian’s diplomatic war against Israel and they are unlikely to pursue peace after the vote.
A PLO official said that they already have the support of more than 150 of the 193 UN member states.
Israel already knows that it cannot thwart passage of the bid, but it hopes to sway European and Western nations not to support it. The Untied States has already spoken out against the bid, but the European Union has yet to state its position.
A PLO official said it believed the Palestinians had the support of the 18 of the 48 nations that belong to the Council of Europe.
Abbas’ call for renewed negotiations along the pre-1967 lines has the support of many left leaning Israeli politicians including President Shimon Peres, former prime minister Ehud Olmert and former foreign minister Tzipi LIvni.
On Sunday Peres phoned Abbas, a spokeswoman for Peres said, without disclosing any details of the conversation. The official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, said the two men discussed the peace process.
Dozens of left wing activists demonstrated in support of Abbas on Monday night in front of the Likud party headquarters in Tel Aviv.
But Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon said that Abbas was disingenuous. Olmert and Livni had made Abbas a generous offer, that fell close to his demands and he had still rejected it.
He added that Netanyahu had tried very hard to negotiate with Abbas. The last time indirect talks were held in Jordan, he said, it was the Palestinians, which fled from the table.