By JPOST.COM STAFF, REUTERS 
 
 Photo: REUTERS/Darren Whiteside 
 
 Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Friday he would demand full membership of the United Nations when he goes to the UN General Assembly next week, setting up a diplomatic clash with Israel and the United States. 
 
 
 
 "We are going to the United Nations to request our legitimate right, obtaining full membership for Palestine in this organization," Abbas said in a televised speech, indicating he would seek a vote on the issue in the UN Security Council. 
 
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 "We are going to the Security Council," he added, to rapturous applause from his audience of Palestinian leaders. "As for other options, we have not yet taken a decision on them," he said.Abbas said that nobody should have any illusions that he will come back from New York with independence."If we succeed, and this is what we are working towards, then we must know that the day following the recognition of the state, the occupation will not end," Abbas said."But we will have obtained the world's recognition that our state is occupied and that our land is occupied and not disputed territory, as the Israeli government claims," he said.He added that the move is not intended to isolate Israel or delegitimize its legal status. "Israel is there, no one can isolate or take away its legal status, but we need to isolate the policies of Israel. We need to put an end to the occupation and take away the legal status of the occupation."The PA president said that recognition of statehood with pre-1967 borders is necessary for renewed negotiations with Israel. "We need to have full [UN] membership within [pre-1967] borders in order to go to negotiations on a basis adopted by the world so that we may discuss the permanent issues of Jerusalem, borders, refugees - and our prisoners in Israeli prisons.""We're not going there to bring independence, we will come back to negotiate the issues, but god willing, we need full membership in the UN."He stressed that any popular protests in support of his initiative should be peaceful. Jerusalem fears that the UN showdown could spark violence across the West Bank and is putting IDF forces on high alert in the area.Abbas is due to address the UN General Assembly on Sept. 23, when he said he would present Palestine's membership bid. ||||| The Palestinian Authority will push ahead with its bid to get United Nations statehood recognition though it won’t press for an immediate vote as support in the Security Council appeared to be below the needed threshold. 
 
 The Palestinians have said at least eight of the council’s members -- Russia, China, Gabon, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, Lebanon and India -- will back them. The U.S. veto pledge notwithstanding, that still leaves the Palestinians one vote short of the nine needed for membership. 
 
 The U.S. and Israel have leaned on council members favoring the statehood initiative to abstain from voting, leaving the Palestinians fighting to retain support. Allowing the UN’s administrative process to delay the consideration in the 15- member body will permit the Palestinians to save face and buy diplomats time to look for an alternative that restarts peace talks. 
 
 “We will give some time to the Security Council to consider first our full membership request before heading to the General Assembly,” Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath told reporters yesterday. “If we fail, we will keep knocking on the door. We do not have a time limit.” 
 
 Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will address the UN General Assembly tomorrow and formally submit his letter of application for statehood recognition to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who will then pass it on to Lebanon, which presides this month over the Security Council. It’s the only Arab country in the decision-making body and supports the bid. 
 
 ‘Going Forward’ 
 
 “We are going forward with our application for a full state,” Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior member of Abbas’ Fatah party who is on the special committee that prepared the UN bid, told Bloomberg Television. 
 
 About 500 people waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans in support of statehood today, parading past the grave of Palestine Liberation Organization founder Yasser Arafat in Ramallah. 
 
 “We will not surrender,” said 26-year-old Niveen Abuez. “We will continue our path to achieve our basic rights.” 
 
 Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, said that Abbas has “worked hard to manage expectations and I think people will give him another two months, maybe longer.” 
 
 “They weren’t really expecting him to come back home tomorrow with a state,” he said. 
 
 In what U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to as “extremely intense” diplomacy, Israel and the U.S. made headway in eroding support for the membership initiative even among countries the Palestinians had been counting on. 
 
 Nigerian Vote 
 
 Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met in New York with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and convinced him to stay neutral in a possible vote on Palestinian statehood, according to a statement released by his office. 
 
 Nigeria is among the nine nations on the Security Council that have recognized a Palestinian state. The others are Brazil, Russia, China, India, Lebanon, South Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Gabon. 
 
 Some countries have seldom received so much attention. Bosnia and Herzegovina is the smallest country on the council. Its UN envoy is a 36-year-old Croat, who says he’s been contacted by Israel, the Palestinians and the U.S. 
 
 Delay Process 
 
 Once a membership application has been lodged, the Security Council can delay the process. For South Sudan, it took three days to make the African country the UN’s 193rd member while Jordan had to wait five years. In the case of the Palestinians, an admissions committee representing all 15 council members might be set up to deliberate on the matter for days, weeks or even months. 
 
 U.S. President Barack Obama underlined yesterday that his position had not budged when he told the gathering of world leaders that “peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN.” There was little in his words to encourage Palestinians or sway Abbas to change course. 
 
 “It didn’t really take us forward to anywhere,” said Shtayyeh in a telephone interview. “The negotiations themselves are in a crisis. We took this initiative to change the status quo.” 
 
 Another option open to the Palestinians would be to pursue an upgraded status at the General Assembly, from “entity” to “non-member state,” such as the Holy See, the government of the Roman Catholic Church, based in the Vatican. That could enable them to sign international treaties and have cases heard in the International Criminal Court. 
 
 Win Endorsement 
 
 Such a course could win the endorsement of some Europeans in the council, such as France and Britain, which are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, yet want to see greater recognition accompanied with a return to the negotiating table. 
 
 French President Nicolas Sarkozy, addressing the General Assembly yesterday, supported the “intermediate step” of observer-state status. He also proposed a one-year timetable for resumed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to lead to a full peace accord. Talks should begin within a month without preconditions, he said. 
 
 Peace negotiations collapsed last year following Netanyahu’s decision not to extend a 10-month partial freeze on construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Abbas has said he won’t resume talks while building continues. Netanyahu, who hasn’t offered to resume the freeze in settlement building, has repeatedly said that Abbas should restart direct talks. 
 
 To contact the reporters on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in United Nations at fjackson@bloomberg.net; Bill Varner in United Nations at wvarner@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net
– It’s official: Mahmoud Abbas will demand full UN membership from the Security Council next week, despite an almost certain veto from the US. Abbas formally committed to the gambit for the first time in a speech today, the New York Times reports, saying that “We need a state, a seat at the United Nations, and nothing more.” The US had hoped it could talk Abbas out of the move. But the AP notes that Abbas downplayed expectations, saying the move wouldn’t grant Palestine its independence. “The occupation will not come to an end,” he said. “But we will at least have recognition that we are under occupation, and not a disputed territory as Israel says.” He also said that he wasn’t trying to isolate or delegitimize Israel, according to the Jerusalem Post. “Israel is there, no one can isolate or take away its legal status,” he said, “but we need to isolate the policies of Israel.”