France's Juppé joins pressure against Palestinian UN bid

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé on Monday pressed the Palestinians to “avoid confrontation” at the UN as President Mahmud Abbas vowed to press on with a bid to be recognised as an independent state.

Chris Hondros/Getty Images

Warning that there could be an “explosion of violence” in the Middle East, Juppé told a New York thinktank that the current status quo is “neither acceptable nor tenable”.

But he repeated European and US calls for a relaunch of talks with Israel, the option they have been pushing to avoid backing the Palestinian statehood bid.

Juppé would be meeting Abbas later Monday, he told the Council on Foreign Relations.

"I will ask him what is his strategy? Going to the Council of Security and what after that?” he said. "We have to avoid such a confrontation. We have to find a balanced solution."

Germany also said it wanted to head off “confrontation” on Monday and called for the resumption of peace talks.

The Palestinians argue that recognising their statehood would not prevent talks but Israel has slammed their proposal.

Abbas on Monday urged Israelis to back the bid “so that there can be a two-state solution”.

The US says it will veto the move if it goes to the Security Council but is trying to prevent it getting there but Abbas said he will not back down and blamed Israel for the failure of previous talks.

"Our efforts are focused on the request for UN membership, we will not discuss other ideas," he said. "We decided to go to the UN because all the negotiations, direct and indirect, failed because of Israel's stubbornness."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Middle East Quarter envoy Tony Blair met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, apparently attempting to deflect the Palestinians with the promise of peace talks which could include a freeze of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory.

Palestinian and international activists have set up a watchdog to monitor the growing number of attacks by Jewish settlers.

In the past 10 days their have been at least nine cases of vandalism on mosques, cars and agricultural land, with flaming tyres being rolled into one mosque in an attempt to burn it down.

Radical settlers in the West Bank have adopted a so-called “price tag” strategy, under which they attack Palestinians and their property in response to Israeli government measures against settlements.

The Palestinian Popular Committees have pledged to monitor attacks and publicise them.

Settler rabbi Yaakov Medan condemned the strategy Monday, signing a petition dubbing them “totally unacceptable”.