palestinians celebrate after the united nations general assembly votes overwhelmingly for nonmember status des price strong u.s. and israeli opposition, palestinian authority prime minister sa lem fay yesterday is here with us to react today. good day. i m andrea mitchell live in washington. president obama took the show on road today. who are not impressed by the administration s opening budget officer. offer. joining me is kristen welker, and luke russert. first to you, the calculus in going to the suburbs of philadelphia, kristen, clearly he feels that the political play right now is better than the inside game that didn t work for him during the super committee negotiations, but can that backfire? right now the president feels as though he has a fair amount of leverage having won
agreements with israel, going back to 1993, it did so on behalf of all palestinian people. those who reside in the occupied territory in gaza as well as west bank, but also on palestinians. so you believe you still represent all? obviously. the plo and the [ inaudible ] are competent to negotiate for the palestinian people. i will be the if irs to admit as long as the separation persists it s not going to be possible for us to have that state. prime minister, thank you very much for joining us. pleasure. a historic day and week for the palestinian authority. and joining me is former u.s. ambassador to israel, vice president of foreign policy at brookings, coconvenienter of the forum on u.s./israel relations convening this week. thanks very much. what is the significance of what happened at the u.n.? a step forward, a step back or status quo? i guess a step sideways, out
of the normal channel for resolving the conflict peacefully, that is through negotiati negotiations, sideways to the united nations. it doesn t move the palestinians forward. it s a significant but symbolic act. and if it produces a kind of punitive, vicious circle in which the israelis now announce more settlement activity, the particularly strategic activity it seems to be, and then the palestinians decide to go to the international criminal court who would charge israel with some crimes and then we ll get into a downward spiral, the congress cuts the funds to the palestinian authority, we could be in very negative territory quite quickly and bear in mind that there s an election coming up in israel in which an outbidding process is likely to occur. already you have lieberman
there s a lot of speculation as to what the palestinians were up to. a resolution was passed. with quite a confident majority, more than two-thirds of the membership of the united nations. i think the key lies in what happens afterwards. i mean it s important and highly significant but i think it s time to move on. it s time to move on. there s not much point in the palestinians sitting there admiring the creation for too long because there s still work to be done. if our people is going to be able to leave as free people and a genuine state, on the other hand those who are against this, israel, but others, of course, the united states [ inaudible ] and what she said yesterday, i think it s important to look beyond what happened and see how best to take advantage of it. let me ask you this, israel says we have no one to negotiate with because you and the
the prime minister of the palestinian authority. mr. prime minister, thank you very much for being here. you you arrived as this was happening. is this a setback for the palestinians or is there real cause for celebration as we saw in ramallah and the rest of the west bank last night? the celebration has to be well understood and appreciated, actually given the length of time it took for us to get to the point where this is s issue. there s a great deal of powerful symbolism. it is symbolic. it s not statehood. it s highly significant symbolism. given on the day it happened, 65 years earlier, the same body, the general assembly at the united nations passed the partition plan on palestine which six upon later gave rise to the birth of israel. here we are as palestinians 65 years later still looking for a country we can call home. yes, it s symbolic but i believe it s highly significant and