For a moment, it appeared that the Palestinians were on a roll in confronting the US-Israeli deal announced in Washington on Jan. 28. At a Feb. 1 emergency meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo, they had succeeded in obtaining unanimous rejection of the plan and procured similar resolutions from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Feb. 3 and the African Union on Feb. 11. Their strategy was for the counter-offensive to culminate in New York with a tough speech by President Mahmoud Abbas on Feb. 11 and a near-unanimous vote by the Security Council on a resolution opposing the plan at the council's mandated quarterly session.

The Palestinians realized that their motion would be met with a US veto, but they wanted to isolate the Americans with a 14-1 vote. The plan fell apart largely because of a self-imposed time constraint of syncing a vote with Abbas' speech as well as pressure from a US counter-campaign.

“The idea of a UN Security Council resolution opposed to [President Donald] Trump was and is the right idea,” said a senior PLO official in Ramallah who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. “The US plan clearly violates international law and everything that the UN represents. If done right and with the time needed, the plan would have gotten enough votes to be read and discussed and voted on.”

The PLO source noted, however, that a “fatal mistake” had been made in tying the resolution to Abbas’ speech, which he delivered two weeks after the unveiling of the US plan. “When you push yourself with a time constraint, you put everyone under tremendous pressure, and you are bound to come up short,” he explained.