Arab League states are partnering with western nations again to draw up a resolution on the Syrian unrest, which is to be debated and voted on in the General Assembly this week.

The resolution, aimed at maintaining the pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, is very similar to the resolution that Russia and China vetoed just over a week ago. Though General Assembly resolutions carry less significance, they can’t be vetoed.

Foreign ministers from the Arab League states also urged the formation and dispatch of a joint UN-Arab peacekeeping mission to Syria. In response, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “stressed that action on the specific requests of the League will be a matter for the Security Council to consider.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking at a press conference in Gaza on Thursday, admonished the Palestinians for their persistent launching of rockets into Israel.

“Indiscriminate killing of civilians is unacceptable under any circumstances,” Ban said, a day after Palestinian terrorists fired eight rockets into southern Israel.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s convoy was pelted with shoes and stones as it entered Gaza on Thursday.

Scores of demonstrators lined the Gaza side of Erez crossing, from where Ban entered Gaza, to protest Ban’s neglect of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The UN chief is scheduled to visit UN-funded development projects in Gaza.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Wednesday and told him that a freeze on building in Judea and Samaria should not be a precondition for negotiations with the Palestinians.

“This issue is a part of the negotiations, it can’t be a precondition,” Netanyahu said. “Settlements are not the crux of the conflict, but one of its outcomes. The conflict started 50 years before there were settlements.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon told reporters in Jerusalem that there is “no alternative to a dialogue with Iran.”

Ban made his comments following his meeting with President Shimon Peres, where Peres reportedly said that time was running out and all options against the Islamic theocracy remained on the table. Peres also expressed skepticism that the current sanctions regime will yield significant results.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, speaking at a joint press conference with President Shimon Peres Wednesday morning, expressed his continuing concern that Iran’s nuclear program has a nuclear dimension.

“I have been urging the Iranian authorities to prove that their nuclear program is genuinely for peaceful purposes. I think they have not yet convinced the international community,” Ban said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Israel on Wednesday in a bid to encourage Israeli and Palestinian leaders to continue the dialogue that began in Jordan in January.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh on the eve of his arrival to Israel, Ban urged the Israeli government to ”to make some good gestures so that the meetings can continue.”

Ban added that “dignity and justice in this region are threatened, not only by authoritarian rule, but also by occupation and conflict.”

Israeli government officials said in response that Israel would be willing to engage in reciprocal goodwill gestures within the context of negotiations with the PA, and added that Israel is likely to announce the approval of a number of development projects in Gaza to coincide with Ban’s visit.

As reported here last week, the PA is demanding the release of high-profile prisoners, but Israeli officials said the government was instead focusing on possible economic gestures Israel could make to the PA in Judea and Samaria.

In a likely reference to the recent incidents of incitement by official PA organs, Ban said it is “essential that provocations stop, as called for by the Quartet, and that the parties build confidence and sustain these nascent talks.”

Ban will meet with President Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday. He will also visit Ramallah to meet with PA officials.

On Thursday, Ban will travel to Gaza to tour UN projects and institutions, but will not meet with Hamas officials. Later in the day, Ban will visit Sderot, the town that has borne the brunt of Kassam rocket barrages from Gaza.

Ban will end his trip by delivering the keynote address at the annual Herzliya Conference.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told his cabinet Sunday that he is pessimistic about prospects for peace based on current negotiations, following volatile meetings between Israeli and Palestinian Authority representatives in Amman, Jordan.

“As things stand now, according to what happened over the past few days – when the Palestinians refused even to discuss Israel’s security needs with us – the signs are not particularly good,” Netanyahu said during his weekly meeting in Jerusalem.

In Ramallah, PA President Mahmoud Abbas told Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore on Saturday that “Israeli intransigence” was behind the talks’ failure, saying Israel did not present a “clear vision” of border and security issues.  He said the PA remains committed to “end[ing] the Israeli occupation” and establishing a Palestinian state which would contain lands currently inside the borders of post-Six Day War Israel, with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.  PA officials criticized Israel’s plan for preserving a majority of Israeli communities in the historic Jewish regions of Judea and Samaria.

On Saturday, an acrimonious spat broke out between  Israeli and PA negotiators in Amman, which is said to have stunned the Jordanian hosts who had brokered the renewed talks.

Leader of the Israeli negotiating team Yitzhak Molcho and head PA negotiator Saeb Erekat exchanged verbal jabs after Erekat prevented a senior Israeli officer from elaborating on Israel’s position on security arrangements.

Molcho brought with him to the Saturday meeting the head of the IDF strategic planning division, Brigadier-General Assaf Orion, to present Israel’s detailed position on security.  Erekat refused to hear Orion, saying the Brigadier-General should present his statements to the PA delegation as a written document, telling the Israeli team that he did not “have the mandate” to negotiate security decisions without a detailed document from the Israeli delegation on the issues of borders and security.

To that, Molcho responded that if Erekat does not have a mandate to discuss those crucial issues, “maybe you should leave and bring someone in your place who does”.

Molcho also criticized the PA for allowing incitement against Israel in its press, and read a number of quotes from the Mufti of Jerusalem, who was broadcast at a Fatah conference on Palestinian television last week for calling for the murder of Jews.

The PA has already announced that the next meeting between Israel and the PA in Amman will be the last.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be arriving in Israel in the near future to press Israel on the issue of negotiations with the PA.  He will also meet with Israeli leaders on issues pertaining to an attack on Iran.

On Friday, the Obama administration urged Israelis and Palestinians to continue holding talks in Amman.