The UNSC is expected to vote on a resolution brought by the Arab states and the PA declaring the Israeli settlements in occupied West Bank illegal

The UN Security Council is expected to vote today on a resolution brought by the Arab states and the Palestinian Authority declaring the Israeli settlements in occupied West Bank illegal and an obstacle to a two-state solution.

The United States is expected to veto the resolution, its first such action since President Barack Obama took office two years ago.

The Obama administration tried to persuade the Palestinians to withdraw the resolution in favor of a non-binding statement from the Security Council presidency condemning settlement activity and additional diplomatic incentives.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior advisers Isaac Molho and Ron Dermer told U.S. officials that Israel does not oppose even a sharply worded statement from the Security Council but made it clear to the American interlocutors that Tel Aviv expects the United States to veto the Arab resolution if it is submitted to a vote.

According to Haaretz, a senior Foreign Ministry source said Washington is leaning very hard on the Palestinian Authority and Arab states to withdraw the resolution. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke on the phone this week with PA President Mahmoud Abbas. The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, met on Tuesday with the permanent representatives of Arab states at the world body and made it clear that the United States is keen to find a compromise on the matter in order to avoid a situation having to exercise its veto power.

Abbas called an urgent session of the Palestinian leadership on Friday after the top-level US bid to halt the appeal. Abbas was to convene members of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the central committee of his Fatah movement for talks in the evening, just hours ahead of a Security Council vote in New York, officials said.
  
"During the conversation [between Abbas and Obama], they reviewed ... the question of taking settlement activities before the UN Security Council," presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP in Ramallah.