Obama dashes Palestinian hopes of UN recognition bid

Addressing the UN General Assembly, Mr Obama – whose earlier peace efforts accomplished little – insisted Middle East peace “will not come through statements and resolutions” at the world body and put the onus on the two sides to break a year-long impasse.

“There is no short cut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades. Peace is hard work,” Mr Obama told the annual gathering of world leaders.

Grappling with economic woes and low poll numbers at home and growing doubts about his leadership abroad, Mr Obama is wading into Middle East diplomacy at a critical juncture for his presidency and America’s credibility around the globe. He faced the daunting test of Washington’s eroding influence in the region in his last-ditch bid to dissuade the Palestinians from going ahead with a push for statehood in the UN Security Council this week in defiance of Israeli objections and a US veto threat.

Mr Obama attempted to strike a delicate balance. He sought to reassure Palestinians he was not abandoning his pledge to help them achieve eventual statehood while also placating any Israeli concerns about Washington’s commitment to their security.

Members of the General Assembly, where pro-Palestinian sentiment is high, listened politely but had a muted response to his 36-minute speech.

The White House says that only direct peace talks can lead to peace with the Palestinians, who in turn say almost two decades of fruitless negotiation has left them no choice but to turn to the world body.

Mr Obama followed his speech with a round of talks with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who echoed the president’s assertion that renewed negotiations were the only path to a peace deal but offered no new ideas how to get back to the table. He said, however, that the Palestinian UN statehood effort “will not succeed”.

European patience is wearing thin and French president Nicolas Sarkozy proposed an ambitious timetable to resume peace talks within a month and achieve a definitive deal in a year.

The drama over the Palestinian UN bid is playing out as US, Israeli and Palestinian leaders all struggle with the fallout from Arab uprisings. It also comes as Israel finds itself more isolated than it has been in decades and confronts Washington with the risk that, by again shielding its close ally, the US will inflame Arab distrust when Mr Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world is already faltering.

Taking note of deep frustrations over lack of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front, he said: “Israelis must know that any agreement provides assurances for their security. Palestinians deserve to know the territorial basis of their state.”

Senior diplomats from the US, Russia, the European Union and the UN – the “Quartet” of Middle East mediators – were still scrambling yesterday for a compromise but with little sign of a breakthrough. The speech offered no new prescriptions for Israeli-Palestinian peace from Mr Obama, who laid out his clearest markers for a final deal in May and angered Israel by declaring its pre-war 1967 borders as the starting point for negotiations.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary-general of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, last night said there was “a gap between [Obama] praising the struggle of Arab peoples for the sake of freedom and an abstract call for negotiations between us and the Israelis.”

“We expected to hear the freedom of the Palestinian people was key for the Arab Spring,” he said. “Freedom should cover the [whole] region.”