Palestinians' despair grows as Obama not to ask Israel to halt settlement (3)

In 2009, when Obama visited Egypt and addressed his historic speech to the Muslims and Arabs from Cairo University, he called for a new start, and he reiterated that his country doesn't recognize the legitimacy of settlement and that it's time to completely halt settlement, a request rejected by Israel.

In response to the expansion of the settlement and the freeze of the peace process, the Palestinian leadership threatened of going for other diplomatic and popular actions, such as upgrading the Palestinian representation in the United Nations and intensifies the peaceful popular resistance against Israel.

An official Palestinian source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Xinhua that the Palestinian leadership expects that Obama would exert pressure on the Palestinians not to join various UN organizations, mainly the legal ones in The Hague, in order to block any attempt to sue Israel.

Ahmed Rafqi Awad, the political science professor at Beir Zeit University in the West Bank, told Xinhua that the U.S. negligence of expanding Israeli settlement is a clear message to the Palestinians that they must live with Israeli settlements.

"Obama visits here and closes his eye before the increasing settlement in the West Bank. He doesn't want to seriously discuss it with Israel as if he wants to tell the Palestinians, 'You should accept the occupation of your lands and forget about all your legitimate rights,'" said Awad.