Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas headed (18.9) to New York at the head of a large delegation of officials.

Saeb Erekat

On the eve of the UN vote, Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the PA leadership, in cooperation with the Arab League and Qatar, has sought legal advice from all around the world about all the issues.
The application to the UN will be submitted by Abbas in his capacity as chairman of the PLO Executive Committee and President of Palestine, Erekat pointed out. “The PLO will remain the party in charge of negotiations over the final-status issues.”
He added that UN recognition of a Palestinian state would not cancel the status of the PLO as the “sole legitimate” representative of all Palestinians, including the refugees. Erekat stressed that in any case the statehood bid would not be at the expense of any of the Palestinian basic principles.
According to Erekat, the statehood bid has at least six advantages: Palestine within the 1967 “borders” with Jerusalem as its capital would become a state under occupation by another member of the UN and Israelis would no longer be able to say that these are disputed territories; the reference for the negotiations with Israel would focus only on a setting a timetable for an Israeli withdrawal; the Palestinian people alone would have the right to self-determination; UN conventions oblige all members to help a country that is occupied by one of the members; Palestine would have access to all UN bodies, such as the international criminal court which, the status of the Palestinian prisoners in Israel would change and they would become, after the UN recognition of a Palestinian state, “prisoners of war.”