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U.S. President Barack Obama met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday evening, as the United States continued efforts to grapple with a diplomatic crisis over Palestinian statehood.
Obama spoke earlier on Wednesday to the United Nations General Assembly, saying that both Israelis and Palestinians should negotiate a settlement, rather than seek a resolution from the United Nations.
However, it is the failure of 20 years of U.S.-brokered negotiations that has driven Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to take his quest for a state to the United Nations -- a ploy that could embarrass the United States by forcing it to protect its Israeli ally against the tide of world opinion.
Obama's last-ditch diplomatic drive won praise from Israel, which will rely on Washington to block the Palestinian U.N. membership bid in the Security Council.
The White House said Obama told Abbas that U.N. action would not achieve a Palestinian state, and the United States would veto any Security Council move to recognize Palestinian statehood.
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