LONG anticipated and greatly feared, the end game between Israel and the fledgling Palestinian state could be decided this week when the UN opens its 66th session in New York.

Almost half a century after Israel’s position in the Middle East was defined by its stunning victory in the Six Day War in June 1967, the country faces the biggest challenge to its relationship with the Palestinian people.

Unless Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is persuaded to change his mind, he will present an application to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon to become a full member of the world body, acting in his capacity as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, not as the president of the Palestine Authority, the ruling body in the West Bank. Following a speech in Ramallah on Friday he spelled out his people’s claim as a “legitimate right”, telling his followers that “we need a seat at the UN”. He is expected to speak on behalf of his case on Friday, September 23.

Such a move would support Palestinian claims to the West Bank along the border with Jordan, the separate Gaza Strip on the coast and East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as their capital with its borders agreed by the 1967 peace agreement. As Ghassan Khatib. Abbas’s spokesman put it before Abbas rose to speak: “We became ready for statehood and independence according to the international community’s criteria.”

With so much at stake it will be a momentous decision which will bring into sharp focus the fractured relationship between the Israelis and their immediate neighbours. The odds are that the UN General Assembly, the main deliberative policymaking and representative body, will smile kindly on the Palestinian application as many of the 199 members represent emerging countries and have an inclination to be inclusive.

At the latest count, 126 members of the body have indicated they will back the Palestinian request – including France, India, Brazil and Spain – but they will not have the last word. Even if the General Assembly agrees to Abbas’s request this will not produce the desired result as the Palestinian Authority would only become a permanent non-member, the status enjoyed by the Vatican. Although it would enable Palestinians to be represented on a number of UN committees, the so-called “Vatican option” is regarded as second best by those close to Abbas.

However, if the application is passed to the Security Council for a decision it will almost certainly founder as the US, the most powerful of the permanent members, will produce its veto in support of its long-standing close ally Israel. Most western diplomats are convinced this will be a disastrous option. Not only will it put the Palestinians on a collision course with the US but it will also underline the reality of Washington’s support for Israel and its failure to broker any meaningful peace deal during President Barack Obama’s time in office. The veto is not just an idle threat but a diplomatic reality as White House official Jay Carney made clear on Friday.

“The Palestinians will not and cannot achieve statehood through a declaration at the United Nations,” he said. “It is a distraction, and in fact, it’s counterproductive, the only way to resolve the issues between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and to ultimately create a Palestinian state, is through direct negotiations.”

To cap Washington’s opposition, secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton has also voiced opposition to the idea, having warned Abbas the application is short-sighted and that the solution to the problem lies not in New York but in Jerusalem and Ramallah. This is not an unexpected response as Clinton and other members of President Barack Obama’s administration are mindful of the fact that any hint of backsliding in the UN will bring electoral retribution from the Zionist lobby which remains a powerful factor in US domestic politics.

While that kind of criticism is natural in Palestinian circles there is a growing awareness in the region that the US has done little or nothing to revive the peace process and has failed to make any meaningful contribution to deliver an independent Palestinian Territory on land seized by Israel after the 1967 war. Following the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, which broke out in 2000, Israel was forced to take defensive measures to ensure its own safety from the threat of attack, especially from the firing of rockets and missiles by Hamas and Hezbollah fighters.

As a result of the assaults, which caused over 1000 casualties, mostly civilians, the Israelis have built a network of walls, fences, berms (earth barriers) and checkpoints. While these have disfigured the landscape and caused huge problems in communications between Israel and the Palestinian territories, Israeli military leaders say they are essential for the security of the state.

More controversial has been the policy of settling some 300,000 Israeli citizens on disputed land in Judea and Samaria in the West Bank. At the same time a further 200,000 Israelis now live in and around East Jerusalem on land which Israel has formally annexed. As a result of these “land grabs” (the Palestinian description) or “legal repossessions” (the Israeli version) the policy has left Israel in control of 60% of the West Bank’s territory, effectively governing the lives of 150,000 of its 2.5 million Palestinian residents and taking possession of land considered to be crucial to the creation of a viable Palestine.

Prior to the Palestinian resolution to apply to the UN, US involvement in the peace process has been fitful, partly because Obama’s attention has been sidelined by the domestic economy and US intervention in Afghanistan, but intransigent Israeli and Palestinian attitudes have also been to blame for the impasse. The Israeli government is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, a conservative who will not yield on land settlement, while Abbas and his colleagues refuse to recognise Israel’s existence. It does not help the latter’s standing that they only represent the West Bank while Hamas governs in Gaza.

If there is to be any kind of progress this stalemate cannot last. Abbas at least seems to have wakened Washington from its slumbers by forcing Obama’s team to involve itself in the attempts to broker an agreement, and it seems to be working. As the reality of the Palestinian resolve began to sink in last week, with the UN deadline looming, the State Department through Secretary of State Clinton launched a diplomatic offensive with the aim of reining in Abbas’s ambitions and preventing a confrontation with Israel

“It is our absolute conviction that we need to get the parties back into negotiations on a direct face-to-face basis and that they have to be at that negotiating table working through the framework that President Obama laid out in May. That remains our focus. We are absolutely committed to pursuing that,” said Mrs Clinton. “We are working closely with a range of international partners, and we intend to keep our attention where we think it needs to be, which is how we can try to convince both sides to do what must be done in order to bring about a resolution of the issues between them, and that’s going to be certainly the core of all of our efforts for the next several days.”

It is not difficult to understand her anxiety. Were there to be any fresh eruption involving Israelis and Palestinians it would exacerbate what is already a tense situation in the Middle East. In addition to the recent regime changes in Tunisia and Libya and the ongoing crackdown in Syria there has been a subtle change of strategic checks and balances involving Egypt and Turkey, two of Israel’s closest allies which are now flexing their muscles, largely as a result of unnecessary clashes with Israel’s security forces.

Both governments were in action last week following riots in Cairo which led to the Israeli embassy being abandoned. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in the Egyptian capital ostensibly on a three-day mission to gauge the effects of the recent “Arab Spring” uprisings but also to lend moral support to his hosts and to support Palestine’s UN application, which he described as an “obligation”.

Although the new ruling Egyptian military junta is wary of Turkey’s regional ambitions following the failure of its application to join the EU last year, they recognise the Turkish leader as an important ally.

At the same time as Erdogan was courting the Arab League in Cairo he reiterated that strained ties with Israel will not improve unless Netanyahu apologises for the death of nine Turks killed in a botched Israeli raid against an aid flotilla that tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza last June.

The Egyptians also have issues with Israel following the killing of five border guards in an incident last month and, as the week drew to an end, Egypt’s prime minister Essam Sharaf caused consternation in Jerusalem when he announced that as a result of the quarrel the terms of the 32-year-old Camp David peace accords between the two countries were not “sacred”.

Coming on top of last week’s riots in Cairo this was hardly the most diplomatic of statements and heightened fears that Israel was gradually being isolated by its southern neighbour and long- term ally.

Throughout the administration of President Hosni Mubarak, currently facing trial following his overthrow earlier this year, Egypt gave resolute support to the Camp David accord and proved to be a loyal friend to Israel. Now all that seems to be changing and Israel will be the loser if there is any shift in Cairo’s diplomatic stance.

To hammer home his point that things have changed, Prime Minister Sharaf made his comments on Turkish television. As both countries also support the Palestinian bid to join the UN there is a growing sense in the Middle East that the Arab Spring has not just changed the old order but is ushering in the emergence of new and challenging relationships.

As ever in this tinderbox of a region the threat of violence is never far away as leaders move to protect their own best interests. Ahead of the diplomatic showdown in the UN, and before leaving Cairo, Erdogan threatened to deploy Turkish warships in the eastern Mediterranean to protect Turkish interests while Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman made no secret of the Israeli position when he warned of “harsh and grave consequences” if the Palestinian bid succeeds in New York this week.