Palestine non-member observer status – a cause of celebration?

Unable to secure full membership Abbas petitioned the UN for non-member observer state status

On the 65^th Anniversary of the UN declaration that led to the creation of the state of Israel, the UN General Assembly has voted in favour of changing the Palestinian status from observer entity to non-member observer state. The semantics describing the extent of non-statehood for the Palestinians could not get more ludicrous yet the move is being presented has an improvement in the status of the Palestinians.

The vote for non-member observer status came a year after the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied to the UN for full membership which was rejected by the Security Council.

Abbas and the PLO are seeking UN recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, the lands Israel captured in 1967. Unable to secure full membership for a Palestinian state they petitioned the UN for non-member observer state status.

However, this is a false choice for the Muslims and is the politics of weakness and defeatism. The PLO started out vowing to end the Israeli occupation but following compromise after compromise and concession after concession is now celebrating the non-effectual “non-member observer status” of the UN.

In effect what we have seen is a “race to the bottom” in the status of the Palestinians not in their elevation.

Most importantly, it has forced compromise on issues that are not up for negotiation for Muslims.

Narrated Said bin Zaid:
Allah’s Apostle said, “Whoever usurps the land of somebody unjustly, his neck will be encircled with it down the seven earths (on the Day of Resurrection). ” [Bukhari Volume 3, Book 43]

Where is the justice for those whose lands have been usurped not only since 1967 but from 1948? What of the rights of those forced out of Palestine as permanent refugees in Syria, Egypt and Jordan. All sense of what’s right or just has been subject to waiver. Over time this devalues justice and principle until all sense of what’s right is lost and what is blatantly wrong appears fair seeming.

However, Allah (swt) says:

“Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: for Allah can best protect both” (Translated meaning of Quran 4:135)

Leveson Report: Can its recommendation work?

The press provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us. At the heart of this Inquiry, therefore, may be one simple question: who guards the guardians?”
Lord Justice Leveson

Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry into press standards has provided weeks worth of scandalous headlines and opinion columns. Regardless of the standards by which the press conform, they certainly know how to run with a story and keep the British public interested. Scandals, corruption and gossip sell newspapers. Balanced objective analysis sells fewer newspapers. The press cater for the tastes of their customers and that is the driving force behind the “unethical” practices which have been highlighted in the inquiry.

There is great public interest in the close relationship that has been found between the owners and editors of large media organisations and the government. We have learned about police willing to accept money from journalists for information and the lengths to which journalists might go to get a scoop, outrageously hacking the voicemail box of a missing child’s mobile phone! The unacceptable and illegal invasion of privacy and corruption in the press had many people campaigning for reform of the media in the United Kingdom.

But now that media regulation is on the cards, there is a significant campaign against it. Those white collar libertarians are terrified that any form of government regulation of the press would inevitably lead to some sort of totalitarianism from which we would never escape. Isn’t it bad enough, they might argue, that the media incessantly interferes in politics without politicians interfering back! Leveson might ask “who guards the guardians?” The next question becomes “who guards the guards of the guardians?”… and so continues the conundrum.

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are nice slogans but inherently carry with them contradictions. A free media is seen as the vehicle in a civil society that informs the public as to the activities of government and allows appropriate accountability and political participation. But what if the media is in fact monopolised by a handful of multimillionaire capitalists who are able to colour the opinion of the masses to serve their opinion or their interests? Clearly defamation and libel must carry with them penalties as such publications genuinely harm some individuals. Lines do need to be drawn and the only question is where the line should be.  Placing some media regulations does not inevitably lead to totalitarianism as the hysterical supposed libertarians might fear. The lines must be clearly defined and strike the correct balance.

It should be recognised that the majority of media in the Western world is of no particular value to society anyway. Much consists of tabloid gossip, magazines with more gossip and dieting tips, reality TV and other frivolous subjects. A small but important subsection of the media deals with scientific and technological research, economy and politics and these are the boring parts of the media that few people pay much attention to. Many of the unsavoury practices which have been made public through this inquiry, have not been related to reporting of matters of vital public concern. Those defending freedom of speech are expending excessive effort defending the right to insult, and invade privacy for the purpose of coffee time amusement. What needs to be defended is the ability of the press to accurately scrutinise and report on the actions of government independently and without censorship or interference. This does not require slogans about freedom with limitations but rather clear cut protections for the press in their role as public servants and protection for the public from the press either invading their privacy or unduly influencing politicians and policy.

In this regard, concepts of freedom of speech and the press inhibit effective regulation while the press caters to the whims of a public who enjoy distracting themselves with irrelevancies.

The Islamic Shariah strongly protects the independence of the press and forbids any interference or censorship in reporting by government. Similarly, there are strong protections for privacy, defamation and against frivolous gossip. The press has an important role in informing the public and accounting the government in Islam. Islam also emphasises the importance of accounting the tyrant ruler even if it led to death.

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: “The master of martyrs is Hamza bin AbdulMuttalib and a man who stood to an oppressor ruler where he ordered him and forbade him so he (the ruler) killed him.” [Abu Dawud]

With the amount of online media sources through social media, blogs, YouTube and news websites, the idea of totalitarian restrictions on speech are unattractive and probably near impossible. Rather the Shariah lays down clear cut red lines, for which crossing will invite a criminal prosecution and which observing will ensure the producers protection. Goalposts should not move.

The root of this problem is the West’s perpetual commitment and blind faith in freedom of speech. There is no absolute moral or ethical justification for its adoption yet it becomes the basis of their thinking. As it is demonstrably impossible to have absolute freedom of speech, restrictions must be imposed resulting in immediate contradiction. The quagmire simply deepens when the limited freedoms lead to increasingly malicious actions inviting further limitations and regulations. So the argument continues without any logically consistent conclusion possible due to the failure of the fundamental premise, freedom of speech itself.

This illogical contradictory position leads to the absurd situation where proponents will endlessly defend practices that have no tangible benefit to this country and actually confer a great deal of harm for the sake of freedom of speech itself. All this, while those rich enough continue to get injunction orders to prevent the press from reporting their misdemeanours. All in the fear that government regulation would end with a dysfunctional press cow-towing to their governmental masters.

The Leveson inquiry simply demonstrates that a free press in liberal democracies cannot regulate themselves and the root cause of the problem is the irrational belief in freedom of speech. In Islam, speech cannot be restricted unless it contravenes laws that arise from the Shariah and this necessarily includes the accounting of political institutions. Political leaders are not allowed to restrict speech or the press for their own political ends and likewise the press cannot cross clear ethical lines established by the Shariah.

Countdown to the end of the world? ?What a joke

The world will end in 16 days, we've been told. That's when the Mayan calendar "runs out," causing us all to cease to exist, the story goes.

It's hoopla, of course. I guarantee we will still be here on December 22nd, and if I'm wrong and the universe really does come to an end, then, well, you can shoot me or something.

Sure, there may be some strange things happening on or around December 21st. Many people are using the Mayan calendar transition to engage in meditation marathons in order to focus on universal peace and similar vibrations. That's all fine and good. No harm in some healthy meditation...


Other people suspect that governments might actually use the day to stage something nefarious, thereby preying on the uncertainty and fear that already exists as the day approaches. This is a legitimate possibility, so if anything does happen on December 21st or 22nd, the first question to ask is: "Did the government stage this?"

The danger of investing your intention in false prophecy

There's always some prophecy, it seems, warning that the end of the world is arriving on a specific date. Last year I remember a few people posting on Facebook, frantically begging me to write about an approaching comet (or secret planet, I don't remember which) that was going to collide with the Earth and destroy us all.

I never covered the topic, of course. And here we still are, amazingly.

But some people really, seriously believe in the latest prophecy fad and as a result they plan their lives around the belief that nothing will exist beyond December 21st. This does not resonate well with life tasks such as financial planning. Some people are spending away all their credit cards right now under the assumption that they won't have to pay anything back since we will all be destroyed on the magical Mayan calendar day.

That approach to debt spending is really going to suck on December 23rd or whenever the bill comes due. In fact, it may feel a lot like the end of the world when you realize you prematurely quit your job and spent away a whole lot of money you didn't even have (and now have to pay it back without the benefit of a trillion-dollar government bailout).

There are legitimate threats to our world, but the Mayan calendar isn't one of them

Doomsday is actually approaching, by the way, and there are lots of ways in which our current human civilization is utterly unsustainable.

There are legitimate threats to our civilization from GMOs (genetic pollution), the pillaging of natural resources, loss of top soils, the polluting of the oceans, rampant infertility caused by synthetic chemicals, and even threats from hare-brained scientific experiments that could theoretically create black holes which consume the entire planet.

None of those are fiction; they're very real. And on top of that, there's also the coming debt collapse which won't actually destroy the world but will make you wish it had been destroyed due to the rampant poverty and starvation it will likely unleash.

But even with these real, legitimate threats, that's no reason to live your life as if it's all coming to an end, because in truth nobody knows the timetables on these things. The economic collapse, for example, could happen tonight or maybe in ten years. It's hard to tell exactly when things will reach a point of collapse. So while it's smart to be prepared for the unexpected, it's not prudent to allow your entire existence to be dominated by the thought that it's all coming to an end on a specific calendar date.

Unless God himself broadcasts a multilingual message from the heavens that announces a specific time and date that he's going to "end the simulation" and close the cosmos, you would be wise to stay on course with your life and not bet all your cards on a prophecy dreamed up by ancient humans who hadn't even developed an alphabet yet.

Rogue Terrorism for a Greater Israel

Most peoples that resist the power politics of Zionism condemn aggressive actions of the outlaw Israeli state regularly. Yet most of the western democracies that are under the control of Talmud media and Khazar finance continue to defend the apartheid policies that are designed to purge any prospect of Palestinian, right to return, to the land of their forced removal. No matter what your politics are regarding the Middle East, the indisputable fact exists that the Greater Israel design for expanded territory is a core impediment of this interminable conflict.

From the beginning, Zionists advocated a "Jewish State" not just in Palestine, but also in Jordan, southern Lebanon, and the Golan Heights as well. In 1918 Ben-Gurion described the future "Jewish state's" frontiers in details as follows:

"to the north, the Litani river [in southern Lebanon], to the northeast, the Wadi 'Owja, twenty miles south of Damascus; the southern border will be mobile and pushed into Sinai at least up to Wadi al-'Arish; and to the east, the Syrian Desert, including the furthest edge of Transjordan" (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 87) Click here to view the "Greater Israel" map that was submitted by the Zionists to the peace conference after WWI.

The self-justification by Zionists for enhancing strategic security enlargement of territory never deals with the central issues. The entire concept of a homogeneous "Jewish State" under a secular Zionist regime, mocks the notion of religious faithfulness to the teaching in the Torah. The meaning of a "Greater Israel" has little to do with devotion of Jehovah.

In order to comprehend this distinction read the essay Zionism, Racism and anti-Semitism.

"Zionism is a political movement. To equate motives of politics with a religious belief is specious. Judaism is NOT equivalent to Zionism. The distinction is imperative if a correct understanding of relationships and actions, in the Middle East, are to be appreciated. A Zionist often professes their acceptance of the tenants of the Jewish faith, but a 'true believer' in the supremacy and survivability of a political state, can and frequently are non-believers to Judaism and the Torah. This is crucial, because it is not a condition of political allegiance to share faith in Yahweh."

Review the deplorable history of Israeli territorial designs. The Maps Tell The Story account that displays the chart of expansionist settlements.

"Starting with the United Nations Partition Plan, 1947, the original borders for the state of Israel are quite limited. This index illustrates the significant border changes after the 1949 War of Independence, after the six day war of 1967, than after the 1982 return of Sinai and the invasion of Lebanon, and finally after Palestinian autonomy and Lebanon withdrawal in 2000.
But the most notable map is the one that identifies the Israeli settlements on the West Bank. A careful analysis of the locations and the areas that are an effective no man's land, demonstrates the consequences of the expanded settlements. It is hard to believe that Israel will ever agree to remove their own population from these areas."

Most discussions about Israel originate under the premise that the government in Tel Aviv has an immutable right to defend itself. Thus far, the plight of the displaced Palestinians is almost exclusively relegated to condemnation for inflicting savage terrorism. At the same time the enormous military technological offensive strike capabilities of the Israeli Defend Force undertakes carnage with a disproportionate vengeance that unmasks the true vicious hatred of non-Zionists. Conferring moral authority for IDF airstrikes equates to the same erroneous rationale and hypocrisy that NeoCon proponents shower over the U.S. bombing of al-Qaeda enclaves.
The tentative cease-fire in the latest rupture of mutual hostilities just plays into the hands of the incremental Zionist expansionists. The overriding concern in Israel is not that their Iron Dome missile system can destroy incoming Hamas Fajr-5 projectiles. Their goal is to seek cover for their intended preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
RT quotes from the account; Iran confirms military aid to Hamas, sending long-range missile technology.

"Iranian lawmaker Ali Larijani said on Wednesday his country was "proud" to defend the people of Palestine and Hamas according to remarks published on the Islamic Republic’s parliamentary website.
Larijani stressed the assistance had been both "financial and military." On Tuesday, Larijani lauded the Palestinian missile capability, saying it had given them a "strategic [source] of power."

Now the world press will decry Iran for their acknowledged support of Hamas. However, the Washington Post article back in 2006, Hamas Sweeps Palestinian Elections, Complicating Peace Efforts in Mideast, grudgingly reports:

"The radical Islamic movement Hamas won a large majority in the new Palestinian parliament, according to official election results announced Thursday, trouncing the governing Fatah party in a contest that could dramatically reshape the Palestinians' relations with Israel and the rest of the world.
In Wednesday's voting, Hamas claimed 76 of the 132 parliamentary seats, giving the party at war with Israel the right to form the next cabinet under the Palestinian Authority's president, Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah."

When did you last read that the radical IDF using American aircraft and smart bombs struck a sovereign country’s industrial facilities and slaughtered civilians as collateral damage? Full Spectrum Dominance, in the pursuit of eliminating any resistance to the New World Order is justified in the Zionist press. Simply put, the NWO is composed of many rabid Zionists that give a new meaning to the term extremist. However, in the bigger scheme of things it is No Surprise - Terrorism Is Winning.

"The reason that Terrorism is seen as the ultimate foe of governments is the nature of the warfare. Let no one mistake the stakes. Those who are willing to die to deliver chaos and turmoil are dangerous. But, more than that, they are unstoppable. Such an assessment may be unpopular but consider the facts. Regimes and prosperous societies have much to lose. Alienated and hostile adversaries that place little value on life, are no match for standing armed forces. By denying the temperament of the attacker and responding with overwhelming force, the inevitable futility of the end result; is guaranteed. Even tactics of aggressive proactive search and destroy strategy, fails to address or eradicate the underlying conflict. The battle may be won short term, but the war just continues."

In spite of using the term terrorism, the reaction to systemic aggression often takes a violent response. This is the ultimate break with faith, principles and teachings of all the three eminent monotheistic religions. Warfare over territory is as old as history. Destabilizing Egypt, Libya and now Syria is part of a larger master tactic to isolate Iran as the only remaining obstacle to the greater State of Israel.
U.S. forces under the discredited pretext of weapons of mass destruction falsehoods dismantled Iraq. Co-opting Gaza so that Iran can be leveled from the air means that the jointly developed Israeli/American Iron Dome batteries can be deployed for incoming Iranian missiles after a sneak attack strike.
The article Hamas, Israel and the United States sums up the dangers of American involvement into a blood feud. Dominance of the region and impoverishment of the oil poor inhabitants drive the displacement of Palestinians into ghettos of expedient smart weapon annihilation.

"A regional dispute over land that was stolen with the blessing of Western Democracies is and always has been the nucleus of the eventual holocaust. What Americans are so unwilling to accept is that our own country has no duty or moral imperative to arbitrate between eternal enemies. It is a local conflict that can only destroy our own land by intervening. Making matters much worse are foreign policies that the United States acts as a neutral broker for peace."

Just who is the rogue state in the Middle East? Israel is no ally. The political reality of domestic politics is hard pressed to poke the Jewish lobby in the eye. Nonetheless, attacking Iran in a joint operation with the IDF is pure madness. The old axis of evil rhetoric has deplorable consequences, when applied with JDAM-equipped bombs guided by a global positioning satellite system.
Hamas does not have clean hands, but when will the American public come to grips with the real reasons for the destruction of our own nation? The Western Democracies capitulated to the Zionists in the theft of Palestinian land. Khazar imposters are not Semite descendants of Abraham. Their own ruling class dupes sincere tribal Jews. Zionism puts them at risk. The "Greater Israel" expansionism is an impediment to any negotiated peace with justice.How much more blood needs to be shed to admit the obvious? Christian-Zionists bear a heavy responsibility in fostering the Likudnik mindset. Without a moral treatment of all peoples, not all the military weapons on the planet will ever impose peace. The Arab dynasties hardly champion the Palestinian cause. When desperation becomes genetically acceptable, the entire world loses its humanity. In order to eradicate unremitting bombing, the globe needs to face up to real rogue terrorism.

Internet Privacy? Not If the Government Has Its Way

by Kevin Mathews

The Senate will consider a new bill that threatens Internet privacy rights on Thursday, November 29, reports Yahoo and CNET. If the bill passes, government agencies will no longer need a warrant to have total access to citizens’ email accounts and other forms of electronic communication.

Thus far, the bill has not received too much attention, in part because it has played out as a bit of a bait and switch. Initially, the bill was written explicitly to strengthen email privacy by necessitating that police have probable cause and a search warrant to access citizens’ email. However, law enforcement agencies objected to the content of the bill and it was consequently postponed from its initial review date in September.

In the interim, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy has rewritten and completely overhauled the bill. The potential legislation would now counter its original intent and give the government unprecedented access to private Internet accounts.

Government agents would no longer need a judge to approve searches of private Internet content. This legislation would not only apply to emails. Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs, and just about any form of electronic messaging, would also be subject to Big Brother’s watchful eye.

If the bill passes, over 22 government agencies would achieve easy access to American’s Internet accounts, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Postal Regulatory Commission. State and local police would be granted similar advantages.

One provision even stipulates that if service providers such as Google, Facebook, or Twitter want to inform specific users that law enforcement is monitoring their content, they must first tell the agencies that they intend to do so. Internet users will not be notified for about two weeks after it occurs, although agencies can delay the report from being released for as much as a year. In other words, the government expects a little privacy while invading the privacy of its citizens.

Another provision states that all existing laws and practices can essentially be ignored if enforcement agencies feel the situation is an “emergency.”

Critics of the bill find it alarming that a bill designed to protect privacy is now promoting the precise opposite. “There is no good legal reason why federal regulatory agencies such as the NLRB, OSHA, SEC, or FTC need to access customer information with a mere subpoena,” argues Markham Erickson, a Washington D.C. attorney.

Middle East in high suspense for Gaza operation sequels

While Israel’s Pillar of Cloud was still in full spate over the Gaza Strip and southern Israel, the United States, Russia, Iran, Israel and Turkey were each respectively putting their next moves in place in a broader radius,DEBKAfile reports.
Saturday, Nov. 17, America acted to shore up its naval and Marine forces in the region. Washington gave its approval for NATO to post Patriot anti-missile batteries in Turkey opposite the Syrian border together with advanced AWACs electronic warning aircraft. Both weapons systems are to be manned by US military crews. Next, the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group took up position opposite the Israeli and Syrian shores, adding another section to the menacing ring forming around Syria.

Moscow, Iran and Damascus, for their part, decided that the same coalition that laid a trail of disaster for its allies in the Gaza Strip, Hamas and Jihad Islami, were now about to pounce on Iran’s best friend, Bashar Assad, by moves to enforce protected asylums and no-fly zones in Syria.
In Tehran and Moscow, the Gaza offensive was not perceived as a lone Israeli operation but rather as the ground-breaker for a broader offensive by the US, Turkey and Qatar and the product of their combined intelligence brains rather than of military war planners.
Iran had been systematically building up the Gaza Strip as its “southern front” to fight enemies who attacked its nuclear facilities. The obliteration of a large portion of the military infrastructure Hamas and Jihad Islam had accumulated left this plan in shambles. Moscow and Tehran fully expect Washington to next turn the attention of the intelligence team which engineered the dashing of Iran’s hopes in Gaza to Syria and Hizballah, exploiting Tehran’s momentary weakness.
Moscow reacted by posting the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s naval task force opposition the Gaza, i.e. Israeli coast Friday, Nov. 11, purportedly to rescue distressed Russian citizens “should the Israeli-Palestinian fighting worsen in Gaza.”

 Their arrival was announced Nov. 23, two days after a ceasefire went into effect in Gaza.
The Russian task force includes the missile cruiser Moskva, the destroyer Smetlivy, the large landing ships Novocherkassk and Saratov, the tugboat MB-304 and the large oil tanker Ivan Bubnov.

DEBKAfile’s military sources say its real mission concerns forthcoming events in Syria rather than a worsening of hostilities in Gaza. Indeed it has been stationed facing the USS Iwo Jimawhich is in position opposite the Israeli and Syrian coasts.
As for Tehran, Saturday, Nov. 24, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad phoned the Hamas Prime Minister of the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniya, and Jihad Islami leaders to assure them that Iran will continue to supply them with munitions as before and refill their depleted arsenals within weeks.
This assurance was widely publicized by Tehran as deterrence for the US-Egyptian-Israeli plan to shut down Iran’s arms smuggling routes through Sinai to the Gaza Strip. The promise by US President Barack Obama to send US troops to Sinai for this mission finally persuaded Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to suspend Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip last Thursday, Nov. 21 after eight days and accept a ceasefire.
The week ahead holds three major events, DEBKAfile’s military sources report.
1.  Iran is not expected to let its Gaza debacle go by without response – probably by some act of military or terrorist violence. Israeli intelligence closely watched Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani putting his head together on how to go about  punishing Israel with Bashar Assad in Damascus on Friday, Nov. 23, and with Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut the next day.
2.  A fresh war escalation is on the cards in Syria in response to the deployment of US-manned Patriots and AWACs on Turkey’s border with Syria. Syria may decide to vent its ire against Israel.
3.  Egypt’s pro-democracy, liberal and anti-Muslim Brotherhood forces are arrayed for a major battle against President Mohamed Morsi for his assumption of extraordinary powers. This contest has the potential for undoing the fragile ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Part of the deal was for Morsi to personally monitor and arbitrate the implementation of the secret understandings for Gaza and Sinai that were negotiated between the US, Egypt and Israel in order to open the door to the ceasefire

France to Vote in Favor of Palestinians’ U.N. Bid

 Support in Europe for a heightenedPalestinian profile at the United Nations grew on Tuesday when the French government said it would vote in favor of the Palestinians’ bid for nonmember observer status, embracing a move that Israel and the United States have opposed.
The announcement byFrance, a permanent member of theUnited Nations Security Council, is the most significant boost to date for the Palestinians’ hopes to be granted the enhanced status in the world forum, and with that greater international recognition. Russia and China, two other permanent members, have also thrown their weight behind the Palestinian bid.

The backing of France and other countries appeared calculated to provide diplomatic ballast to thePalestinian Authority’s president,Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate whose Fatah party governs in parts of the West Bank. The effort came after the militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, saw its credibility and standing with Palestinians rise after eight days of fighting with Israel.

But the French announcement was also a blow to Israel, whose diplomats have been working feverishly to try to ensure what they call a “moral majority” in the United Nations vote, meaning that even if a majority of nations voted in favor of the Palestinian bid, the major world powers would not.

The Palestinians said Tuesday that at least 12 European Union countries had confirmed that they were behind the Palestinian bid. With that support widening in Europe, Israeli officials acknowledged that the effort to gain a “moral majority” was crumbling.

Countries in the European Union are “slowly drifting toward support or abstention,” said Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France, speaking before the lower house of Parliament on Tuesday, said that on “Thursday or Friday, when the question is asked, France will reply, ‘Yes.’ ”

Though recognition at the United Nations would be viewed by many as an implicit recognition of statehood, the “concrete expression of a Palestinian state” can come only through negotiations “without conditions” between Palestinians and Israel, Mr. Fabius added.

Israeli officials also said they were not surprised by the French announcement. Ilana Stein, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said, “Of course, we remain in our opinion that this is a very harmful initiative by the Palestinians; our opinion has not changed.”

Muhammad Shtayyeh, the Palestinian special envoy for the United Nations bid, issued a statement from New York saying: “We are very thankful to France, and we call upon other European governments to announce their support for Palestinian freedom. This is long overdue.” The two other permanent members of the Security Council are the United States and Britain.

The vote on enhanced status is fraught with symbolism, and some analysts see it staying that way. It will fall on Nov. 29, the 65th anniversary of the United Nations decision to partition the territory of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

If approved, it will do nothing to relieve the unresolved issues at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli disagreements.

“There is one basic reality,” said Robert M. Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former State Department official. “The Palestinians still control less than half of the West Bank and will control less than half of the West Bank tomorrow and the day after until the Israelis decide otherwise.”

Last year, the Palestinians submitted an application to the Security Council to become a full member state of the United Nations, but the effort went nowhere; the United States made it clear it would veto the request.

The Palestinians still believe that broader recognition of their presence in the United Nations is a crucial step to a two-state solution. The draft resolution for the vote on status “reaffirms the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their state of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.”

The Israelis are concerned that the Palestinians could use enhanced status to try to join other bodies, like the International Criminal Court, where they could pursue legal claims against Israel. Israeli officials also view the Palestinian bid for enhanced status as a nonmember state as a violation of previous accords.

“This is in stark contrast to their commitment to resolve issues through negotiations,” said Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman.

While any vote supporting greater Palestinian status at the United Nations could help Mr. Abbas, a moderate, Mr. Danin said the bid, if voted in, could lead to heightened tension with Israel.

“For the Palestinian Authority and President Abbas it is a symbolic victory that I think he feels he badly needs right now, particularly in the wake of the recent violence in Gaza, but more generally as well,” he said. “Originally he posited this as a tool in a strategy leading to renewed negotiations. In the short term it will have the opposite effect.”

Also on Tuesday, the remains of Yasir Arafat, the longtime Palestinian leader, were exhumed in Ramallah as part of an inquiry into whether he had been poisoned. The atmosphere was subdued, with his people more fractured and less certain of their future than when he was alive.

Meanwhile, responding to unconfirmed reports that Washington and Israel were pressing the Palestinians to include a clause in the resolution pledging not to seek membership in the International Criminal Court, Palestinian officials said they would accept no limits on their statehood.

One Palestinian official denied the reports and said that the American pressure had been directed more generally at getting the Palestinians to drop the whole process. He said that the Palestinians had invited the Americans and the Israelis to be involved in the drafting of the resolution several months ago, but that they refused.

Mr. Regev said only that there were “ongoing talks” between the Americans and the Israelis.

Malta, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Portugal have said they will vote for the measure, while Germany and the Czech Republic are among the countries that have opposed the bid, news agencies reported.