Palestine's
UN
Bid "Won't
Come" To
Security
Council,
France
Predicts Then
Backpedals
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 16
-- After
Mahmoud Abbas
announced that
the Palestinian
Authority
will submit an
application
for full UN
membership on
September 23
to the
Security
Council,
French
Ambassador
Gerard Araud
was asked
about the
rules of the
Council's
membership
committee.
"It
is
irrelevant,"
Araud said,
waving
dismissively.
"It won't come
to us."
The
comment was
noteworthy --
and in today's
day and age, Tweetable.
Soon
thereafter,
Araud came to
the more
formal
televised
stakeout and
backed away or
backpedaled
from his
earlier
comment,
saying that it
is entirely up
to the
Palestinians
what to do,
and he'd only
said it was
irrelevant
because they
had not yet
made their
move.
But
what about the
prediction,
"It won't come
to us"? While
the prediction
might be
right, it
appears from
the Tour de
France
backpedaling
that Araud
would rather
be politically
correct than
be
Nostradamus.
Later,
specific
answers were
provided by
other Council
delegations to
the procedural
questions. The
same 15
Council
members first
sit as a
membership
committee, in
which no one
has a veto.
But their
recommendation
must go to a
regular
Council
meeting, at
which any of
the Permanent
Five member
can veto
Palestine's
application.
Araud at the
stakeout: the
camera doesn't
lie
US
Ambassador
Susan Rice
told the press
that there's
"more than
one," even
"several"
Council
members
"skeptical" of
an application
for UN
membership by
Palestine.
Germany's
position has
been
criticized in
advance, for
example. But
perhaps, as
Araud said
before his
Tour de France
backpedaling,
"it won't come
to US." Watch
this site.
, 
in