U.S. Mounts Last-Ditch Effort to Stop Palestinian Statehood Bid

JERUSALEM, Sept. 15, 2011 -- Two top Obama administration envoys are meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today in a last-ditch effort to stop him from going to the United Nations next week to get recognition for a Palestinian state, a move that would almost certainly lead to an American veto.

A top European Union official and former British prime minister Tony Blair are also conducting shuttle diplomacy between Jerusalem and Ramallah to try and get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table and put off the U.N. bid.

Officials on all sides, however, admit their efforts are essentially futile at this late stage.

Dennis Ross from the National Security Council and David Hale from the State Department met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday night. An Israeli spokesman declined to reveal what was said.

Hale and Ross are due to meet with Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah this afternoon. The session follows a contentious meeting last week over the bid that Abbas on Wednesday called "irreversible."

"There is a lot of very, very energetic diplomacy to see if there's a way to avoid a diplomatic train wreck at the U.N. next week," an Israeli official told ABC News. "We're working on a formula that the international community can endorse that will change the dynamic."

Palestinians to Seek Statehood at U.N. Next Week

The United Nations General Assembly opens next Wednesday and Abbas is due to speak on Friday. The same day, the Palestinians say they will apply for full membership with the United Nations Security Council, an application the U.S. has said it would veto.

Netanyahu is also due to speak that day after some discussion over whether he should attend, thereby raising the profile of he Palestinian bid.

"The General Assembly is not a place where Israel usually receives a fair hearing," Netanyahu told reporters in Jerusalem today. "But I still decided to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it."

"I have decided to convey the twin messages of direct negotiations for peace and the quest for peace," he said.

If the U.S. vetoes the Palestinian bid, Palestinians also have the option of going to the General Assembly and putting forward a resolution to have their status upgraded from "observer entity" to "observer state," akin to the Vatican. That would require a two-thirds majority in the 193-member body, votes they say they have.

Once recognized as a state by the U.N., Palestine could join bodies like the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, paving the way to officially accusing Israelis of war crimes in the international arena.

The Palestinians are working with a number of European nations to write a General Assembly resolution that most - if not all - of the 27-member European Union could support, lending instant legitimacy to Palestinian statehood.

"The only way of getting a lasting solution is through direct negotiations between the parties and the route to that lies in Jerusalem and in Ramallah, not in New York," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday, adding to President Obama's statement that the bid is a "distraction." An American veto would isolate the U.S., especially in the Middle East where the U.S. is seen as blindly supporting Israel.

"They have chosen to be less sensitive to international law and more sensitive to bilateral relations with Israel that has made them more biased," said Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib.