Knotted gun sculpture outside UN headquarters in New York. Photo: wiki commons.

JPost – Israel is working actively in key capitals around the world to prevent the Palestinians from participating in a UN arms trade treaty conference taking place in New York as a full fledged state, and not merely as an observer, western diplomatic officials said Tuesday.

According to the officials, Israel has lodged demarches in various key capitals urging that they work against seating the Palestinians as a state at the meeting which aims to hammer out a binding treaty to regulate the global weapons market. The officials said that Israel has let it be known that it would block the results of the treaty if the Palestinians were granted state status.

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