Mixed Feelings before Palestine's UN Bid

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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to head to the United Nations this coming Friday seeking statehood.

CRI's Jerusalem correspondent Zhang Xiaoyu has been taking the temperature of the move in both Israel and the West Bank.

 
With the United States most likely to veto the Palestinian move at the Security Council, statehood seems highly unlikely.

Still, Mahmoud Abbas is planning to press forward with the move, which seems to be getting quite a bit of support on the ground in the West Bank.

"We need to be equal for the negotiations¹. It's a good step for us."

"I'm not sure, nobody know what's going to happen. But being an independent country, I'm not sure it's going to happen this year."

"The veto will be on that. Everyone knows that. But if you gonna stay hold-handed and do nothing, you will never know what's going to happen."

On the Israeli side, people on the streets of Jerusalem are preparing for the coming Jewish New Year.

The expectation on the streets is that very little will change following this week.

"They'll get nothing out of the UN. If they want something, they have to do with us together."

"I'm very optimistic and I hope they had a state. It's better for them and for us if they had a state."

Veteran Israeli journalist Oded Granot believes that Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, has little choice but to move forward.

"Abu Mazen was really pissed off by insistence² of Netanyahu to go to square one. He wanted to bring on what was achieved during (Ehud) Olmert time. So the combination of, on one hand understanding he can not go back to square one, and on the other hand understanding that he doesn't have enough support from the Arab world for giving up the right of return for Palestinians, made Abu Mazen go for the UN."

Palestinian professor Mazin Qumsiyeh from Bethlehem University says he believes the time is right for Abbas to push for statehood.

"Can it be any worse then what we have now? We have 11 million people, 7 million are refugees, and 4 million are living in ghettoes with walls. Yes the economic aid. Where is the economic aid going? Economic aids going to Palestinians benefit Israel. And I was pleased that he said he will go to the Security Council."

The Palestinian application for statehood draws a border back to the line in 1967.

A recognized state would include East Jerusalem as the capital, and would encompass³ roughly 500-thousand Israelis that have settled outside the 1967 border line.

For CRI, this is Zhang Xiaoyu from Jerusalem.