Palestinians Seeking Statehood at UN May Get Same Rights as Pope
Media Mention of Ghaith al-Omari In Bloomberg - September 8, 2011 - 12:00am

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas won’t walk away from the United Nations General Assembly this month with the sought-after statehood. More likely, he’ll get parity with the world’s smallest state led by Pope Benedict XVI. Support for the upgrade in Palestinian status at the UN from “entity” to “non-member state” is likely if the matter is brought to a vote in the 193-member assembly, where a two- thirds majority, or 129 votes, is required.

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NEWS: Pres. Obama's appointee to a top State Department job tells the Senate that the US will veto a Palestinian application to the Security Council for full UN membership.Palestinians may seek Vatican-like nonmember observer state status at the UN. Palestinians say major differences with the US on a UN initiative continue. The US and Israel intensify efforts to block an initiative. A former White House scientist pleads guilty in an espionage case connected with Israel. Israel faces growing international isolation due to Palestinian diplomatic efforts. Israeli cost-of-living protesters are not sure of their next step. An Islamic Jihad leader is killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza. Tensions are running high at a Palestinian refugee camp outside Jenin. COMMENTARY: Ha'aretz says PM Netanyahu is biting the US hand that feeds him. Gideon Levy says Israeli leaders are acting like pyromaniacs setting the region on fire. Gabriel Mitchell looks at tensions between Israel and Turkey. The Gulf News says Turkey has exposed Netanyahu's “false bravado.” George Hishmeh says the US should follow the Turkish lead in confronting Israel. Daoud Kuttab says the Palestinian leadership is standing up to US pressure. Donald McIntyre says the Palestinian leadership can't retreat from its UN initiative now. The Daily Star interviews Palestinian Social Affairs Minister Majeda al-Masri about the UN and Palestinian refugee rights. Peter Rodgers says Australia should vote yes on Palestinian statehood at the UN. Guy Goodwin-Gill reiterates his concerns about the UN initiative.

Palestinian Statehood and the International Law of Democracy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jurist
by Guy Goodwin Gill - (Opinion) September 8, 2011 - 12:00am

In August 2011, I drafted an opinion on certain legal questions put to me regarding the issue of "popular representation," so far as they might arise in the context of the push to have the State of Palestine admitted as a member of the UN. The opinion provoked considerable comment, including by those who admitted to not having read it, but the overall result appears to have been a stimulating debate about the linkages between statehood, UN membership and representation of the people of Palestine.

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PM takes wrong course on Palestinian statehood
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Canberra Times
by Peter Rodgers - (Opinion) September 8, 2011 - 12:00am

Julia Gillard's apparent opposition to the looming United Nations General Assembly resolution on a Palestinian state may all but sink Australia's hopes for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council. If the resolution eventuates, and if Australia votes no, Australia's claims to be an independent player on the world stage will be a mockery. Once more, the country will have publicly bedded down with Israel and the US and a handful of the latter's irrelevant mendicants.

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Palestine statehood won’t cancel right of return
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Annie Slemrod - (Opinion) September 8, 2011 - 12:00am

A successful statehood bid at the United Nations would not stand in the way of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees eventually exercising their right of return, Palestine’s Social Affairs Minister said Wednesday. In an interview with The Daily Star, Majeda al-Masri discussed some of the stickier aspects of the potential Palestinian state, and how it might affect the future of Lebanon’s approximately 400,000 Palestinian refugees.

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The Palestinian leader can't retreat now
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
(Opinion) September 8, 2011 - 12:00am

The little Caribbean island of Grenada has a population smaller than the central Israeli town of Rehovot. But during the visit to Israel by its foreign minister Karl Hood this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have all made time to see him. The reason isn't hard to find. Grenada has a vote on the UN General Assembly as good as China's or the United States' and it has yet to make up its mind on how to vote when President Mahmoud Abbas takes his case for recognising Palestinian statehood to New York later this month.

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Palestinian leadership stands up to pressure
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Daoud Kuttab - (Opinion) September 8, 2011 - 12:00am

The Palestinian leadership is experiencing a unique situation. Its insistence on going to the UN to seek recognition for statehood despite pressure from Israel and the US is beginning to bear fruit at the local level. Popular support for President Mahmoud Abbas is on an upwards trajectory as the majority of Palestinians are pleasantly surprised by their leader’s determination.

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Turkey leads the way
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) September 8, 2011 - 12:00am

Why does Barack Obama insist on burying his head in the sand, much like Benjamin Netanyahu, and take a back seat rather than seriously pursue, as expected, a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, now in its 63rd year? It seems what got the American president and the Israeli prime minister to climb walls recently was Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s diehard determination to take the conflict to the United Nations later this month.

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Turkey exposes Netanyahu's false bravado
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
(Editorial) September 8, 2011 - 12:00am

The arrogant vacuity of Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Israel is being devastatingly exposed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's insistence that Israel should apologise, or at the very least take some responsibility, for the nine Turkish deaths and using excessive violence when Israeli forces stormed a Turkish ship trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza in May 2010.

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Breaking up is hard to do
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gabriel Mitchell - (Opinion) September 8, 2011 - 12:00am

The results of the UN Palmer Report (which summarizes the events surrounding the infamous “Flotilla Incident” on May 31, 2010) have driven another nail into the coffin that is Turkish-Israeli relations. As a student of the history and development of modern Turkey, I was dismayed by the behavior of the Turkish government: its support of the flotilla and its repeated, cheap attempts to pressure Israel into an apology.

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