---- Palestinian leader hands application to UN chief
---- Netanyahu: negotiations only path to Palestinian state
---- Quartet sets out timetable for negotiations
"I do not believe that anyone with a shred of conscience can reject our application for a full membership in the United Nations and our admission as an independent state," Abbas told the UN General Assembly, which gave him a standing ovation. Trying to head off a clash in the Security Council, a quartet of Middle East mediators urged a return to peace talks within four weeks, "substantial progress" within six months and an agreement to be struck within a year.
The Quartet -- the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations -- asked Israel and the Palestinians to submit proposals on territory and security within three months. Previous proposed timetables for negotiations, such as a one-year deadline set by former US President George W. Bush in 2007 and one by Obama a year ago, have run into the sand. Abbas' statehood ploy exposes waning US influence in a region shaken by Arab revolts and shifting alliances that have pushed Israel, still militarily strong, deeper into isolation.
In their speeches, Abbas and Netanyahu both said they extended their hands to the other party, but each blamed their opponents for the failure of past peace efforts. "We cannot achieve peace through UN resolutions," Netanyahu said, demanding that the Palestinians recognise Israel as the Jewish state, something they reject because they say that would prejudice the rights of Palestinian refugees. Netanyahu offered to meet Abbas immediately in New York, minutes after Abbas said settlement activity must cease first.
LOSS OF FAITH Abbas' statehood request reflects a loss of faith after 20 years of failed peace talks sponsored by the United States, Israel's main ally, and alarm at relentless Israeli settlement expansion eating into occupied land Palestinians want for a state.
"This (settlement) policy will destroy the chances of achieving a two-state solution and ... threatens to undermine the structure of the Palestinian National Authority and even end its existence," Abbas declared. It was the first time he has spoken so starkly of the PA's possible demise, highlighting the predicament faced by a body set up as a state-in-waiting but now seen by its critics as little more than a big municipality, managing the civilian affairs of the main Palestinian cities under Israeli occupation.
Dissolution of the PA would throw responsibility for ruling all of the West Bank back to Israel as the occupying power. Israeli and US politicians have threatened financial reprisals that could cripple the PA, the source of 150,000 jobs.
Israeli delegates stayed in the hall during Abbas' speech, which was punctuated by applause, especially when he recalled his predecessor Yasser Arafat's 1974 admonition to the United Nations: "Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand." In the West Bank, flags and portraits of Abbas and Arafat, draped buildings in a Ramallah square where Palestinians watched a live broadcast of Abbas' speech.
"We have come to take part with our people in asking for our rights," said Mohammed Hamidat, 40. "With the current closed horizons, it's the only thing we can do, even if the result is failure. It's been years since we have seen anything new: this is a first step."
But Israeli settler Meir Bartler, 25, said: "We don't care what they're up to at the UN We have the bible, which says the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people." A gulf of mistrust separates Israelis and Palestinians, who each feel their existence is at stake in a bitter struggle over borders, security, refugees and Jerusalem. Political rifts among Palestinians, and the constraints of US domestic politics, where support for Israel is strong, further complicate efforts to bridge the gaps.
BURDEN OF HISTORY The divisions are rooted in a heavy burden of history, painfully contested narratives and recurring bloodshed. The United Nations partitioned Palestine in 1947, but Arab states rejected that and declared war on the new state of Israel, which then captured more territory than it had been allotted under the UN plan and dispossessed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, who became refugees.
Two decades after Israel seized the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war, the Palestine Liberation Organisation recognised Israel and reduced its demands to a state on those territories. In 1993, PLO leader Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands at the White House on a plan for Palestinian self-rule, which was never fully implemented.
Israel has continued to expand settlements in the West Bank, although it dismantled them in the Gaza Strip, now ruled by Hamas Islamists who refuse to recognise the Jewish state. Abbas accepts that negotiations are still necessary, but argues statehood will put Palestinians on a more equal footing.
"Palestine is being reborn," he declared, saying his "courageous and proud" people were marching to an appointment with history. "And I hope that we shall not wait for long." Israel sees the initiative at the United Nations as a sinister attempt to destroy its own legitimacy. Hamas rejected Abbas' move as "begging" for statehood. "States are not built upon UN resolutions. States liberate their land and establish their entities," said Ismail Haniyeh, who heads the Hamas administration in Gaza.