Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said Tuesday that if the US vetoed the Palestinian UN resolution for a timetable to end the Israeli occupation, Palestine would apply for membership to 522 international organizations and statutes.

Erekat said in a statement that Palestine should also seek recognition by EU countries, especially after the new Swedish prime minister’s announcement that his country would recognize Palestine and the British parliament’s symbolic vote to do the same.

“We have nothing to lose except loss itself,” Erekat said in the statement.

He also pointed out that it was crucial to seek such recognition in the wake of the Israeli assault on Gaza, which he said Israel conducted in order to “destroy” the two-state solution.

The Palestinian leadership must therefore act now, Erekat said.

“Palestinians refuse to turn the Palestinian Authority, which was created to take them from being under occupation to independence, to a national authority to pay for salaries and security coordination (with Israel),” he said.

On another note, the statement also said that in order for Palestinian elections to be held, the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements should hold executive committee elections.

President Mahmoud Abbas has said in recent weeks that he will submit a resolution to the UN Security Council to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank within three years.

If the US vetoes the resolution as expected, officials have said Abbas will give the green light for “the war of international boycott of Israel” and hold it accountable at the International Criminal Court.

Critics of the PA, however, have their doubts, noting Abbas’s disavowal of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement and repeated threats to join the ICC without following through.

(Ma’an – www.maannews.net)