Palestinians warned over UN move [View All]

[Fozzledick]

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has warned the Palestinian leadership against any attempts to unilaterally declare statehood for the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

West Bank-based Palestinian officials said on Sunday that they were preparing to ask the United Nations Security Council to declare their backing for the Palestinian quest for an independent state.

In a radio address on Sunday evening, Netanyahu said: "There is no substitute for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

"Any unilateral action would only unravel the framework of agreements between us and can only lead to one-sided steps on the part of Israel."

Netanyahu did not specify what "steps" Israel could take, but Israeli legal experts have said that if the Palestinians were to move forward on their own then Israel could cancel interim peace accords.

"Israel could say there has been such a gross and major violation that the agreement itself is no longer in force," Robbie Sabel, a former legal adviser to Israel's foreign ministry, told The Associated Press news agency.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/11/2009111653941671211.html