Former International Monetary Fund economist Mr Fayyad, an independent appointed in June 2007 by President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah movement, has authority over the West Bank, while Fatah’s rival Hamas controls Gaza.
Hamas, which has been denounced by the European Union and US as a terrorist organisation, does not support Mr Fayyad, who is highly regarded and endorsed by the international community.
Mr Fayyad told the US news agency Associated Press this week that the search for formal nation status would be largely symbolic and would not change the reality of the Israeli occupation.
Mr Abbas and the Fatah movement are seeking UN membership for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the territories Israel annexed in 1967. The request will be submitted in September, not mid-July as originally thought.
Mr Fatah told reporters that if, as expected, the US deploys its UN Security Council veto to block the membership bid, it will ask the General Assembly to accept Palestine as a non-member observer state with membership of various institutions before returning to the Security Council to plead broad international support for its bid in the hope the US might bow to that consensus. The organisation says it already has the support of 116 countries and expects about two dozen more to declare support for its bid.
Fatah officials told reporters that it hoped UN membership would improve its negotiating influence with Israel – and outflank Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whom they believe is negotiating in bad faith and stalling – as it seeks a two-state solution. Fatah wants Israel to stop building settlements in the occupied territories and recognise the pre-1967 border. “It is not going to be a dramatic result”, Mr Fayyad said in his AP interview.
Asked if anything would change on the ground after UN recognition, he said: “My answer to you is no. Unless Israel is part of that consensus, it won’t because to me, it is about ending Israeli occupation.”
Meanwhile, the first ships forming an international aid flotilla intent on breaking Israel’s sea blockade of the Gaza strip set sail this week despite threats of prosecution by the US to any Americans travelling with it and various blocking tactics by Israel.
With an international aid flotilla poised to sail for the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Israel warned activists not to defy its sea blockade. Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman claimed the aid flotilla includes a “hard core of terror activists” planning “to create a provocation and ooking for confrontation and blood”.
Akram Bader, a Palestinian spokesman for the flotilla, rejected the claims and said: “The activists on board have repeated that they’re non-violent unarmed activists.”
