The decision by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to seek a UN Security Council resolution that would recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and would require Israel’s withdrawal from the territories by the end of 2017 has forced many countries, in the Middle East and around the world, to revisit the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and restore the issue yet again to the front burner. This development has inevitably also placed the political process with the Palestinians and Israeli-US relations over this issue at the top of Israel’s public agenda, resulting in the Israeli-Palestinian political process becoming a hotly contested topic in the Israeli national election slated, for March 17, 2015.
