US rallies support at UN against Palestinian statehood bid

The United States is working to gather enough United Nations Security Council members to resist a planned Palestinian statehood bid so as to avoid having to use its veto power, Israeli and U.S. sources said on Saturday. According to a report published by the Israeli media network, Haaretz, officials in both Israel and in Washington have affirmed that the U.S. was hard at work to and prevent itself the possible embarrassment of being forced to use its veto power in order to thwart the Palestinian vote, by attempting to assemble enough council members to either vote against the proposal or abstain as to make the veto unnecessary. In a possible hint to this effort, U.S. envoy to the UN Susan Rice, speaking to reporters on Friday, referred to the possible outcome of a Security Council vote on Palestinian statehood, saying: "Im not going to predict today what exactly the vote count is," adding, however, that "there are more than one, and perhaps several members of the Security Council, who are skeptical about the timeliness of action in the Security Council." Reports of U.S. efforts to prevent a veto at the UN Security Council came after earlier Saturday, Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath indicated that the Palestinian decision to appeal the Security Council was motivated by their rejection of a last-ditch U.S. attempt to sway the Palestinian Authority away from its planned statehood bid and toward resumed negotiations with Israel.