September 1st

A bad bill for everyone ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist (Opinion) September 1, 2011 - 12:00am The big news in Ramallah, where a few extremely generous and well-informed journalists were nice enough to show me around on Sunday, is the expected move by the Palestinian Authority (PA) this month to push for recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN. This is a highly complicated and sensitive issue which many Palestinians view with some trepidation. » Read more

The Palestinians' Statehood Dilemma: Full U.N. Membership or Observer Status? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Time by Karl Vick - (Opinion) September 1, 2011 - 12:00am It looks like a sure loser: the Palestinian bid for admission to the United Nations as a sovereign state. Never mind that a large majority of the U.N. General Assembly would vote "Yes." U.N. rules clearly state that all applications must first pass the Security Council, where the United States stands poised to exercise its veto, at the behest of Israel. » Read more

Fate of the Egyptian – Israeli peace treaty ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat by Bilal Hassen - (Opinion) September 1, 2011 - 12:00am The Eilat (Um al-Rushrash) Fedayeen [commando] attack on a number of Israeli targets which took place on 18 August 2011 [Southern Israel cross-border attacks], and the implications of this, continue to gather pace like a snowball rolling down a mountainside. Information surrounding this attack remains vague, and there is no concrete information about those who carried it out, or where they came from. Israel claim that the perpetrators came from Gaza, crossed the Sinai Peninsula, entered Egyptian territory, and attacked Israeli targets from Egyptian soil. » Read more

Hardliner and Tent City Leader Tell Tale of Two Israels ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Forward by Leonard Fein - (Opinion) September 1, 2011 - 12:00am There is a man in Israel of whom you most likely have never heard, though he is among the noisiest people in the country. His name is Danny Danon. He’s 40 years old, has been in the Knesset for all of two years, yet serves as deputy speaker and chair of its Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs, as well as sitting on a plethora of other committees, including those dealing with foreign affairs and women’s and children’s issues. He is also chair of World Likud — and a close friend, so both of them say, of Glenn Beck. » Read more

Whose side is Ahmadinejad on? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Douglas Bloomfield - (Opinion) September 1, 2011 - 12:00am After reading an article by the Scripps Howard News Service suggesting that “if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not on Israel’s payroll, he should be,” one reader responded: “Don’t forget to mention that Ahmadinejad is Jewish and possibly an undercover agent for Isreal [sic].” Some double agent; Ahmadinejad continues to be an outspoken booster for Palestinian statehood – perhaps a bit too outspoken, as when he declared last week that the creation of a Palestinian state would be “the first step” in the eradication of the Jewish state. » Read more

Can Netanyahu still engage with Palestinians' UN bid? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Carlo Strenger - (Opinion) September 1, 2011 - 12:00am A few days ago Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor informed the Foreign Ministry that Israel has no chance to stop UN recognition of Palestine. This didn’t really surprise anybody. Defense Minister Ehud Barak already months ago warned of the “diplomatic tsunami” Israel would face in September. » Read more

Peres can't save Netanyahu from UN debacle ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz (Editorial) September 1, 2011 - 12:00am Around 130 countries have pledged to vote in the UN General Assembly in about three weeks to recognize an independent Palestinian state in the occupied territories. Barak Ravid reported in Haaretz this week that Israel's UN ambassador, Ron Prosor, sent a classified cable to Jerusalem saying Israel had no chance of putting together a significant bloc of countries to oppose the resolution. Prosor said that only a few countries would vote against the Palestinian move and that at most a number of countries would abstain or be absent. » Read more

Does the Palestinian UN bid threaten refugee rights? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency (Opinion) September 1, 2011 - 12:00am As the leadership in Ramallah prepares to approach the UN for membership in September, it is also fighting back charges that its initiative is shortsighted and even a threat to Palestinian refugees. Last week Ma'an published for the first time findings by an international law expert that the gambit could alter the PLO's status as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. The legal opinion, by Guy Goodwin-Gill of Oxford University, argued that the Diaspora could be left disenfranchised if this happened. » Read more

The problem with Palestinian political leadership ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian by Ben White - (Opinion) September 1, 2011 - 12:00am For a few months now, discussion of Palestine/Israel has focused on the looming UN vote on Palestinian statehood, but this is obscuring more fundamental problems in the Palestinian political arena – of which the forthcoming UN vote is a symptom. In three critical areas, there are significant flaws hampering Palestinian political leadership. » Read more

‘Acceptance of PA’s UN bid will push back talks for years’ ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Herb Keinon - September 1, 2011 - 12:00am A UN General Assembly resolution recognizing the Palestinian Authority as a nonmember state would create “unbridgeable gaps” and push back negotiations for years, a senior Israeli official warned Wednesday. The official said that once such a resolution was passed, the Palestinians would never be willing to negotiate on the basis of anything less, and no Israeli leader would ever be able to agree to what the Palestinians would likely get from the UN. He said that such a move would be a “strategic mistake by the world,” and said this was well understood by the US. » Read more