Backchannel talks by Blair not "successful"

Israeli envoy to the UN Ron Prosor said that backchannel talks held and supervised by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair have "made progress" but they have not succeeded in averting Palestinian bid to seek statehood recognition at the UN in September, Jerusalem Post revealed on Wednesday. "This progress, with the Palestinians, cannot be called 'successful' unless there will be avoidance of confrontation between the Israelis and Palestinians at the United Nations in September," Prosor noted. "Israel hopes that the Palestinians will back down from their bid to seek statehood recognition at the United Nations on September 20th despite the announcement made by the Palestinian Authority last week that they would go ahead as planned," the Israeli envoy added. Prosor reiterated that Israel's argument that "a confrontation at the UN would be detrimental to both sides urging the Palestinian Authority to resume direct talks." "The Palestinians have climbed on a tree and the higher they climb the higher they request a ladder," he described. "What is going to happen at the end is that they will fall from the tree but they won't just hurt themselves but they will hurt everyone else in the vicinity," he further explained. He concluded by saying that the Palestinian efforts to become the 194th member state of the UN would likely fail as the US has said it would use its veto at the Security Council.