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Discussions began within the United Nations Security Council yesterday on the Palestinian bid for statehood, but it will likely take weeks before it comes to a vote. The U.S. is working intensely behind-the-scenes to convince Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to drop his request and agree instead to a new round of talks with Israel. However analysts say the Palestinian leader has little to gain by returning to bilateral negotiations, decades of which have reaped little. His speech before the UN General Assembly on Friday garnered wide-spread praise from Palestinians. France, India and Saudi Arabia are among the many countries to endorse statehood for the beleaguered territories. Turkey, recently embroiled in a diplomatic fallout with Israel, strongly backed the bid. Should their lobbying prove futile in stopping the statehood bid, the United States has promised to veto it at the Security Council. But Abbas has another card to play: he can ask the General Assembly to raise Palestine from observer status to a non-member state – a move that would raise visibility for Palestinians and give them access to the International Court of Justice. Israel strongly opposes this option as well. Obama has called the Palestinian bid a test of U.S. foreign policy and yet his UN speech last week did more to endorse the status quo than catch the winds of the Arab Spring. Israel’s far-right Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, gave Obama’s UN appearance high marks. But critics say the President has acquiesced to Israel to the point that it lost all credibility to act as arbiter in the long and bitter dispute over the land – and the rights – of the Palestinian and Israeli people.

GUEST: Laila El Haddad, Palestinian journalist, political analyst, blogger, and author of Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting and Everything in Between.

Watch a video of Uprising’s interview with Laila El Haddad here