The UN Security Council begins consultations Monday on Palestine’s application for full membership of the world body, although a vote on the historic bid isn’t expected for weeks

The UN Security Council begins consultations Monday on Palestine's application for full membership of the world body, although a vote on the historic bid isn't expected for weeks.
  
The United States has already threatened to veto the move, insisting on failed peace talks as the only solution for setting up a Palestinian state.
  
US President Barack Obama says the UN bid is an “unrealistic shortcut” that will not produce real and lasting peace on the ground between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

On Friday, the Quartet offered a counterpoint to the unilateral Palestinian bid at the UN, calling for new peace talks to begin within a month with both sides committing to seeking a final deal this year.
  
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbasis ruling out new talks without a "complete halt" to Israeli settlement building.
  
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told NBC's "Meet the Press" program on Sunday that his advice for Abbas was: "If you want to get to peace, put all your preconditions to the side."

"We've been negotiating ad nauseum with a process that had no relationship to reality. That's the problem," senior Palestinian negotiator Hanan Ashrawi told ABC's "This Week" program. "So if you negotiate and you buy Israel time to create unilateral facts, to build more settlements, to steal more land, it is in danger of destroying the whole -- not just peace process -- but the prospects of peace."

Abbas returned Sunday to Ramallah, directly to his Muqataa presidential compound, receiving a hero's welcome from jubilant crowds applauding wildly, waving the Palestinian flag and the yellow banner of his Fatah party.
  
Abbas told them he had conveyed their dreams of statehood to the international community with his address to the UN General Assembly and formal submission of the membership bid. "We went to the United Nations carrying your hopes, your dreams, your ambitions, your suffering, your vision and your need for an independent Palestinian state," he said. "I have no doubt that the whole free world from one end to the other received what we told them about you and your dreams with all due respect."

To pass, the Palestinians need the support of nine out of the 15 members of the Security Council. Six have already thrown their weight behind the bid, seven have not revealed their decision, while Colombia says it will abstain. Security Council consultations were set to begin at the UN headquarters in New York at 3:00 pm (1900 GMT), but diplomats say it could be weeks, even months, before it comes to a vote.