Intensifying violence in Jerusalem has revived a European push for a United Nations Security Council resolution on Mideast peace talks to pre-empt a Palestinian diplomatic campaign at the world body.
The United Kingdom and France are working on a draft resolution that would set guidelines for restarting the collapsed talks to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to three UN diplomats involved in the discussions who asked not to be named commenting on sensitive negotiations.
The two European nations are discussing with Germany and the U.S. ways to craft a text that would undercut momentum for Palestinian demands that the U.N. mandate a deadline for Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories, the diplomats said.
Tensions have been rising in Jerusalem since a Palestinian teenager from the eastern sector was bludgeoned and burned to death in suspected retribution for a West Bank kidnapping and killing of three Jewish Israeli youths. This week, two Palestinians stabbed four people to death at a Jerusalem synagogue.
Two people were injured in another attack near a seminary in the city Friday. Police spokesman Luba Samri said seven yeshiva students got into a fight with a group of Palestinians, and two of the students were wounded.
Five Hamas activists were arrested by the Palestinian Authority on Thursday in the West Bank, according to the Islamic militant group. Hamas spokesman Husam Badran said the Palestinian Authority is "trying to kill the Jerusalem uprising."
The Israeli military said Friday that it dispersed 300 stone-throwing Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank city of Hebron without injuries or arrests.
Smaller clashes also took place at two other West Bank locations -- Qalandiya and Kadom -- also without injuries or arrests, the army said.
The Security Council has failed to reach a consensus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because the U.S. usually uses its veto power to block any measure it views as unfairly critical of its close ally Israel. Yet ambassadors from many countries on the council say the world body's top voice on international peace and security can't remain silent when the situation on the ground has deteriorated so rapidly.
Palestinians have voiced increasing frustration with U.N. inaction, especially after the collapse this year of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's nine-month effort to broker a Mideast peace. Last month they circulated their own draft resolution calling for an end to Israeli occupation by November 2016.
The U.S. and European council members maintain it wouldn't be productive to stipulate a time frame in a U.N. resolution. The U.K.-French draft resolution that is currently in the works wouldn't set a deadline, the three diplomats said.
They said the U.S. and U.K. are interested in a European initiative at the Security Council because it would buy more time to brainstorm a fresh approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
There's pressure to act before year's end because dynamics in the Security Council will change next year when Venezuela, Malaysia, New Zealand, Angola and Spain begin their two-year terms.
Venezuela has long been a supporter of Palestinian statehood, and Spain's parliament voted this month in favor of recognizing Palestine as a state. U.N. diplomats anticipate Malaysia would also back the Palestinians out of solidarity as a Muslim nation.
In Washington, lawmakers who control spending legislation threatened to cut U.S. aid to the Palestinians unless they act to rein in terrorism in Israel.
U.S. law "clearly stipulates that the Palestinian Authority must act to counter the incitement of violence against Israelis in order to continue receiving U.S. assistance," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky.; Rep. Nita Lowey of New York, the panel's top Democrat; and State-Foreign Operations Subcommittee Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Texas, wrote Thursday in a letter to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Information for this article was contributed by Erik Wasson and Sangwon Yoon of Bloomberg News and by staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 11/22/2014