The United States took an intransigent stance on Monday at the UN Security Council, refusing to accept a resolution on sending international observers to monitor the conflict in the Occupied Territories, as requested by the Palestinians, and supported by Arab and Muslim countries.
The Security Council debate - which was not given a headline on the CNN or Yahoo news sites, and only limited mention by the BBC - will resume Tuesday.
Israel has expressed persistent opposition to the idea of a monitoring force in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as Palestinians have stepped up their pleas for impartial observers to verify the instigators of violence.
Acting US Ambassador James Cunningham was quoted in reports as saying that the gravity of events on the ground led the US "to question the appropriateness and effectiveness of any action here in New York."
"What is required now," he added, "is not rhetoric, not debate that polarizes an already volatile situation, and certainly not an effort to condemn one side with unbalanced charges or to impose unworkable ideas that will not change the reality on the ground."
The Palestinian observer to the United Nations chided the Security Council Monday for failing to act on the Middle East crisis, at the council's first open debate to discuss violence in the region in five months.
"It is difficult to believe and impossible to justify the fact that the Security Council has taken no action" since the start of the Palestinian uprising September 28 last year, Nasser Al Kidwa was quoted by AFP as saying, calling on the council to adopt a draft resolution to end 11 months of bloodshed that has claimed more than 570 Arab lives.
Kidwa was speaking at the start of the council's first open debate on the crisis since March 27, when the United States vetoed a resolution to send international observers to the occupied Palestinian territories.
"Since then, the situation has continued to deteriorate," Kidwa said, and the number of Palestinians killed by "the occupying Israeli forces" now totaled 572. Thousands of Palestinians had been wounded and some permanently disabled, he added.
The draft, backed by Arab and Muslim states, calls for an end to Israel's takeover of Orient House - the unofficial Palestinian headquarters in occupied east Jerusalem - an immediate cessation of violence, and the creation of a monitoring mechanism.
According to Haaretz, the prevailing view in the UN is that the draft will not pass and the debate will end without any concrete gains for the Palestinians.
"The debate will afford the Palestinians a public relations advantage, but little more than that," a Western diplomat told the daily.
Security Council meetings are normally reserved for its 15 members, but at the request of Arab states, Monday's session was open to any representative - including Israel and the Palestinians – Albawaba.com
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