Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

On ATT, Palestine Says It Is "Heroic," US on Ammo, Threatens to Pull Out?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 3 -- Even the 3 pm Tuesday scheduled re-start of UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty got delayed, pushed back to 4:30 pm. Palestine's Riyad Mansour told Inner City Press, we are fighting heroically, we and the Holy See were in the front row with Argentina for the opening, and we will not sit anywhere else.

Palestine maintained, as they did yesterday, this the ATT is an "all states" conference in which they can participate. They say "even the US knows this," but is using its muscle to scare other conferees. "They threaten to pull out, and even our supporters get scared."

Responding to the theory that Egypt "used" them, Palestine says that Egypt has suggested a number of compromises to get the conference started.

The US has dangled an openness to language on ammunition. On this, rather than trying to bring the UN "up" to the US standard, the US is opposing such a rising. Why?

A key language point in the ATT involves how to view the human rights records and dangers of arms purchasers -- merely to "take into account," or ignore it? Or to "shall not" sell to them? The solution, if there is one, will be in the middle. And if it is too weak, countries like Mexico will leave. Watch this site.