By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 28 -- After a meeting on Palestine mere minutes in length, Israeli Permanent Representative Ron Prosor and Palestinian Permanent Observer Riyad Mansour both spoke to the press.
Mansour said, in essence, look how many meetings: Monday, Wednesday and Friday as the first meeting of the committee "at the Ambassador level" on Palestine's application.
He said that Israel's Netanyahu government announcing 1100 new settlement housing units was 1100 "no's" to peace. Inner City Press asked Mansour for the response to the Quartet Statement, which he'd said would be Wednesday.
You will hear from Ramallah, Mansour said and left the stakeout. Prosor took his place and said again, by way of opening, that Jerusalem was the capital of the Jewish people while London was still a swamp. (Prosor began using this line when he was Israeli Ambassador to the UK -- some think he should update his material.)
Inner City Press asked him for his Security Council vote count for Palestinian UN membership, and if Israel is lobbying Gabon, Nigeria and Bosnia, at least the Republica Srbska portion.
Prosor cited US President Obama that "through the Security Council, Palestine will not become the 194th member state," then acknowledged that Israel, too, is lobbying: "truthfully, we are both working."
One step was Ehud Barak meeting with Nigeria's Goodluck Jonathan. Some think it was an error to come out of the meeting bragging that Nigeria would abstain, and talking about meeting with Nigeria's oil minister. But to each his own. Game on.
