Abbas at U.N today despite Western pressure

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will ask the United Nations’ Security Council on Friday to recognize full membership of Palestine, even though Israel still occupies its territory and the United States has vowed to veto the move. President Abbas, 76, will hand U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon an application for full U.N. membership, which the Security Council must then consider.

His appeal to the council comes after 20 years of failed peace talks sponsored by the United States, Israel’s main ally, and alarm at relentless Israeli settlement expansion that is eating into the land Palestinians want for a state.

Abbas will set out his case in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will also take the podium to argue that only direct negotiations between the two sides can lead to a Palestinian state. U.S. President Barack Obama, who told the United Nations a year ago he hoped Palestinians would have a state by now, expressed on Wednesday his dissatisfaction with the lack of progress the Palestinian-Israeli talks.