U.S. May Join in a Call for Conference on Palestinians : Mideast: U.N. resolution urging a global meeting on Israel’s occupied territories could come to a vote today.

The United States is considering whether to accept a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an international peace conference to solve festering conflicts between Israel and Palestinian residents of the occupied territories.

Several permanent members of the Security Council called for such a conference during debate Wednesday. While the idea of such a meeting is not new, its possible inclusion in a U.N. resolution at this time would mark a major step by the Bush Administration away from Israel just days before Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir is scheduled to meet with President Bush in Washington.

Some diplomats at the United Nations believe the fact that Washington is seriously considering a resolution calling for an international conference could be considered a none-too-subtle hint that the Administration wants Israel to show far more flexibility on the Palestinian question.

“The Administration wants to push Shamir forward. It is a message to Shamir that unless you come with new ideas and a new initiative, we can’t hold off people calling for an international peace conference,” said a diplomat deeply immersed in the dispute.

The resolution, which could be voted on as early as today, could call for a peace conference “at an appropriate time.”

The timing of the renewed Security Council debate on the safety of Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories is doubly delicate, coming just before Shamir is to arrive Friday in New York and as the United States prepares for direct talks with Iraq on the Persian Gulf crisis.

The Bush Administration is caught between defending Israel and keeping the allegiance of Arab nations aligned against Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein.

An original resolution introduced in November by Cuba, Malaysia, Yemen and Colombia welcomes calls for the convening of an international conference and the appointment of an ombudsman in the occupied territories. It also endorses the idea of convening a meeting of 164 nations that signed the Fourth Geneva Convention covering the treatment of civilians in lands seized during war.

Finland, working with the United States, last week submitted milder proposals, and U.S. diplomats this week circulated a working paper designed to soften the original resolution.

The working paper does not include appointment of an ombudsman or call for a meeting of signers of the Fourth Geneva Convention. But it urges U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar to observe the situation in the occupied territories and, on an urgent basis, to keep the Security Council informed.

It was understood that when these proposals were presented to Malaysia, one of the sponsors of the original resolution, U.S. diplomats were told the wording was too mild.

“I hope that by (this) afternoon we will have a new draft,” said Yemen’s ambassador Abdalla Saleh Ashtal, the Security Council’s president in December. “There is give-and-take at this point. There is some movement.”

Last week, when the United States held the council presidency, it lobbied successfully for the postponement of formal consideration of the resolution designed to protect Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories.

U.S. diplomats did not want the issue of Israel clouding the council’s vote authorizing the use of force to oust Iraq from Kuwait.