September 21st

Palestine progress seen up in air with U.N. bid ATFP World Press Roundup Article from USA Today by Oren Dorell - September 21, 2011 - 12:00am In the past two years, Palestinians who live in the West Bank have seen economic growth that would be the envy of other nations. The Israeli checkpoints that aim to stop terrorists but make travel difficult have been reduced by half. And there is an explosion of construction projects ranging from industrial parks to the first planned city in modern history in a territory that fails to treat much of its sewage. » Read more

The UN bid for Palestinian statehood is irresponsible and counter-productive. But the US must not restrict aid as a punishment ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Telegraph by Michael Weiss - (Blog) September 12, 2011 - 12:00am Last Friday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that he’ll be going to the United Nations on September 26 to seek full recognition of Palestinian statehood, based on 1967 borders with Israel, via the UN Security Council. The US is sure to vote “no” to full recognition, and various European countries may abstain or likewise reject the proposal. In that event, Abbas has said he’ll seek “non-member observer” status for Palestine, conveyed via the more flexible General Assembly. » Read more

.House G.O.P. Tightens Its Bond With Netanyahu ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Steven Lee Myers - September 20, 2011 - 12:00am WASHINGTON — When the Obama administration wanted to be certain that Congress would not block $50 million in new aid to the Palestinian Authority last month, it turned to a singularly influential lobbyist: Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. » Read more

September 20th

Last-minute deal could avert a collision course at the UN ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) September 20, 2011 - 12:00am The insistence by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he will present a request for full UN membership for Palestine in its 1967 borders to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the General Assembly meeting later this week - although telegraphed months in advance - has sent shock waves through international relations, and Israeli and US domestic politics as well. » Read more

A new paradigm ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) September 20, 2011 - 12:00am With this week's start of the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, the Palestinian leadership can rightly say that it has begun to reap fruit from its decision to take the Palestinian cause to the international community. The Palestinian people and leadership have suffered for too long from the inattention of the international community, which insisted on leaving Palestinians and Israelis to their own devices to solve their problems. For the Palestinians, this was equal to leaving their people at the mercy of the brutal Israeli occupation. » Read more

Why the Middle East will never be the same again ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by Robert Fisk - (Opinion) September 20, 2011 - 12:00am The Palestinians won't get a state this week. But they will prove – if they get enough votes in the General Assembly and if Mahmoud Abbas does not succumb to his characteristic grovelling in the face of US-Israeli power – that they are worthy of statehood. And they will establish for the Arabs what Israel likes to call – when it is enlarging its colonies on stolen land – "facts on the ground": never again can the United States and Israel snap their fingers and expect the Arabs to click their heels. The US has lost its purchase on the Middle East. » Read more

Palestinians may delay vote ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico by MJ Lee - (Analysis) September 19, 2011 - 12:00am The United States is working on a last-ditch plan to head off a vote on Palestinian statehood this week by having Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas submit a letter for recognition to the United Nations Security Council without actually holding a vote, CNN reports. » Read more

Encountering Peace: Maybe the whole world isn’t against us? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Gershon Baskin - (Opinion) September 20, 2011 - 12:00am This morning, I heard a conversation on the radio between Israeli journalist Yaron Dekel and Israeli lyricist Yoram Taharlev, who in the 1970’s wrote the song “Ha’olam kulo negdeinu” – “The whole world is against us.” "The whole world is against us it’s a very old refrain, that our fathers taught us, both to sing and to dance... The whole world is against us, never mind, we’ll cope. They don’t care for us... and we don’t care for them..." » Read more

The Tsuris ATFP World Press Roundup Article from New York Magazine by John Heilemann - (Opinion) September 20, 2011 - 12:00am The last time Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu shared each other’s company, you could say that the encounter did not go well—if by “not well” you mean abysmally. This was on May 20, the day after Obama gave his big speech on the Arab Spring, in which he unleashed a tsunami of tsuris by endorsing the use of Israel’s 1967 borders “with mutually agreed [land] swaps” as the basis for a two-state solution with the Palestinians. » Read more

Palestine UN bid difficult, says Nick Clegg ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by Joe Churcher, Sam Lister - (Analysis) September 20, 2011 - 12:00am Britain faces a "difficult judgment" over whether to back Palestinian statehood at the United Nations, Nick Clegg said today amid reports of a coalition split on the issue. The Deputy Prime Minister said there had been "debates" at the top of Government over the position to adopt but said it would be unhelpful to air them in public. Diplomatic efforts are under way to persuade Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas not to table a Security Council statehood bid - which is opposed by the US and Israel. » Read more