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. ||||| “We need to have full membership at the U.N.,” Mr. Abbas said in the speech from his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, which was broadcast live on Al Jazeera and other outlets. “We need a state, a seat at the United Nations.” 
 
 He added, “We are going to the Security Council,” as Palestinian dignitaries gave him rousing applause and a standing ovation. Mr. Abbas called it “our decision, which we have conveyed to everyone.” 
 
 The borders Mr. Abbas seeks are those of 1967, meaning East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza would be included. More than 500,000 Israelis have settled beyond those lines. 
 
 Israel, while officially accepting the idea of a Palestinian state, wants to leave nearly all of the settlers where they are and keep control of Jerusalem. It also fears militant groups and missiles would penetrate such a state unless Israel controls its borders, an approach rejected by the Palestinians. 
 
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 One goal of the move is to gain admission to a range of international legal and diplomatic forums where complaints against Israeli occupation and settlement could be pursued. Mr. Abbas said he was not seeking to delegitimize Israel, only to advance negotiations between two equals. 
 
 For the Obama administration, the move poses an acute dilemma. It has vowed to use its veto because it argues that the only viable way toward Palestinian statehood is through direct talks with Israel. But for the past eight months, Arab countries have risen in revolt against dictators and the Palestinian question has totemic significance for the entire region. 
 
 The United States has struggled to place itself on the side of those seeking justice and freedom in the current revolts. But the Obama administration has supported uprisings in Libya and, less strongly, in Syria , while looking the other way during a crackdown by an ally, Bahrain . A veto of Palestinian membership would intensify Arab perceptions of American double standards. 
 
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 Moreover, Republican lawmakers have vowed to end American aid to the Palestinian Authority if it seeks United Nations membership, something the administration opposes. That could create further chaos on the ground. 
 
 The White House sent two senior diplomats, Dennis B. Ross and David M. Hale, on repeated trips to Jerusalem and Ramallah in recent weeks to try to work out an alternative to a United Nations campaign. 
 
 In recent days, senior administration officials said, the United States was trying to get agreement on a statement, backed by the international community, affirming President Obama ’s proposal last May to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state. That plan would use as a baseline the pre-1967 boundaries of Israel, with land swaps. But Palestinian officials said it was too little too late. 
 
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 “We ask President Obama to face the moment of truth,” Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior Palestinian official, said afterward. “This is a peaceful measure. There is no reason whatsoever for the United States not to support us on this step.” 
 
 The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel issued a curt statement, saying, “Peace will not be achieved by a unilateral approach to the United Nations.” 
 
 Mr. Netanyahu says that the Palestinians must not be rewarded for avoiding direct talks and tough sacrifices. Some of his ministers have called for a range of punitive responses, including annexing portions of the West Bank or removing travel privileges from Palestinian officials. He has not expressed himself publicly on those suggestions. 
 
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 At the Arab League , which had strongly urged the Palestinians to take the less confrontational path of seeking limited statehood recognition via the General Assembly, an official said the group would now nonetheless stand firmly behind Mr. Abbas. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity in order not to upstage leaders of the league, who were traveling to New York for the United Nations annual meetings. 
 
 Officials of Hamas , the militant Palestinian faction that controls Gaza, said Mr. Abbas’s declaration was a useless stunt aimed at continuing what it called fruitless negotiations with Israel, which Hamas does not recognize as a legitimate state. 
 
 “The speech is an attempt to justify the negotiations,” said Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, reached by telephone. He argued that turning to the United Nations would get Mr. Abbas nothing. 
 
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 Hamas has banned public demonstrations in Gaza to support Mr. Abbas’s move. Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, told reporters that Mr. Abbas had approached the United Nations unilaterally, without winning support from the group, despite what Mr. Barhoum called the Palestinian president’s rhetoric about reconciliation. 
 
 Mr. Abbas’s speech was played live on the official channel Palestine TV with the “UN 194” logo of the statehood recognition bid in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. Some Palestinians listened; others said it mattered little because the United States would veto it. 
 
 Admission to the United Nations as a full member state requires a recommendation from the 15-member Security Council, with a majority of nine votes, and no veto from the five permanent members, which include the United States. Then the submission goes to the General Assembly, which must pass it by a two-thirds vote among the 193 members. 
 
 The American vow to veto has already made it clear that the membership application will not make it out of the Council. But as in other matters involving the United Nations bureaucracy, procedural and legal tools can delay the application for weeks or months along the way. And the Palestinians could still subsequently seek less formal recognition of statehood through the General Assembly. 
 
 Mr. Abbas is aware of the obstacles ahead, some diplomats said, and may not object to the uncertainty. He ended his speech, saying, “As for other options, we have not yet taken a decision on them.” 
 
 The theory is that by going to the Council, Mr. Abbas makes his strongest political and symbolic act. And for Mr. Abbas, a man who is 76 and speaks frequently about retiring, that may be part of the point. In addition, the procedural delays at the Council could provide the time for an alternative negotiation framework to mature. 
 
 But that is a distinctly minority view of how events are likely to proceed. Most analysts and officials fear the combination of Israeli and Palestinian intransigence, along with a roiling region, will create the conditions for confrontation rather than negotiation.
– 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.”