Britain and the Palestinian vote at the UN

↪ Britain ready to back Palestinian statehood at UN | World news | guardian.co.uk

Don't welcome this move by Britain — a source of so much of the modern Middle East's woes — they will only back the Palestinians if they jettison the rights other nations have to pursue war criminals:

On Monday night, the government signalled it would change tack and vote yes if the Palestinians modified their application, which is to be debated by the UN general assembly in New York later this week. As a "non-member state", Palestine would have the same status as the Vatican.

Whitehall officials said the Palestinians were now being asked to refrain from applying for membership of the international criminal court or the international court of justice, which could both be used to pursue war crimes charges or other legal claims against Israel.

Abbas is also being asked to commit to an immediate resumption of peace talks "without preconditions" with Israel. The third condition is that the general assembly's resolution does not require the UN security council to follow suit.

Update: France looks like it will recognize Palestine, apparently without condition.