Palestinians launch UN campaign

Palestinians launch UN campaign

2011/09/09

Palestinians on Thursday began a campaign in support of their UN membership bid, as their senior leaders met to fine-tune the plan to become the UN's 194th member state. The launch of the campaign, dubbed "National Campaign for Palestine: state 194," is part of the build-up to Sept. 22, when Acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas is expected to submit the formal membership request. Abbas on Thursday was meeting senior Palestinian representatives including the central committee of his Fatah party, the PLO's executive committee and leaders of various Palestinian political parties. The gathering to discuss details of the bid is likely to be one of the last that the Palestinian leadership will hold before the formal membership request is submitted to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. In Ramallah on Thursday, the solidarity campaign got under way with a march to UN headquarters in the West Bank city, where organizers presented a letter requesting that Ban support the membership bid. "Today we began our campaign on the ground and we chose the UN building because it represents the United Nations and we expect them to respond to our demands," Ahmed Assaf, the campaign's coordinator, told AFP. "We are no less important than the other 193 states in the United Nations, and our message will ask for our state to be 194."