The Pressure Grows: Will the U.S. Hold Firm?

Today we are seeing enormous pressure placed on the U.S. to vote for a "PA State" when the UN Security Council takes up this issue next week.

PA to US: Statehood veto would 'destroy' two-state solution

Erekat says anyone who supports two-state solution should back Palestinian efforts at UN, says would consider dismantling the PA if statehood bid is thwarted; PLO official says UN bid inspired by Obama speech.

The warning came hours after PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced in a speech in Ramallah that he would ask the UN Security Council to accept membership of a Palestinian state. Zakariya al-Agha, the PLO's top representative in the Gaza Strip, also warned against the consequences of a US veto at the UN next week.

He said that the PA was going to the UN because US President Barack Obama, in his last speech to the UN in 2010, talked about the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state within one year.

Also see:

PA Threatens US Over Security Council Veto

And this:

Emergency Quartet Meeting in New York Sunday

Envoys from the Middle East East Quartet will meet Sunday in a twelfth-hour bid to restart stalled talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and stave off a statehood bid at the United Nations this week.

The efforts of the quartet - consisting of the European Union, the United States, Russia and the UN - are part of an intense international diplomatic push in recent weeks aimed at persuading the Palestinians to drop their UN plans.

PA officials have launched a belligerent propaganda campaign against the US veto ahead of their bid saying it would 'destroy' the two-state solution and hinting they might dismantle their own administrative apparatus should it come to pass.

This is getting more and more interesting by the hour. Stay tuned - next week's events could be quite pivotal as far as the Middle East is concerned and promises to have more twists and turns than we have already seen.