Israeli-Palestinian conflict too volatile to wait for U.S. election
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Globe and Mail
by Shira Herzog - (Opinion) September 30, 2011 - 12:00am

Supported by the United States, Israel has always feared “internationalization” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over direct negotiations and rightly sees the majority of United Nations members as biased against it. Palestinians recognize their relative advantage in international forums but, until now, have been content with the familiar ritual of General Assembly resolutions critical of Israel. Now that Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has upped the ante and applied for admission through the Security Council, no one really knows what happens next.

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Another (Predictable) Jerusalem Settlement Announcement
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Americans For Peace Now
by Lara Friedman - (Opinion) September 30, 2011 - 12:00am

As the entire world now knows, yesterday an Israeli planning committee approved Plan 13261, Mordot Gilo - South (aka "Gilo Slopes") - a plan for large-scale settlement construction in East Jerusalem, adjacent to the settlement of Gilo (map, courtesy of Daniel Seidemann). This development was predictable (and predicted). Which is really the theme here.

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America’s dangerous game at the UN
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by John V. Whitbeck - (Opinion) September 29, 2011 - 12:00am

The number of UN member states extending diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine has now risen to 131, leaving only 62 UN member states on the wrong side of history and humanity. If one ignores small island states in the Caribbean and the Pacific, almost all of the non-recognisers are Western states, including all five of the settler-colonial states founded on the ethnic cleansing or genocide of indigenous populations and all eight of the former European colonial powers.

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Victory in defeat
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
(Editorial) September 29, 2011 - 12:00am

Sometimes a defeat can be a great moral victory. For the British, Dunkirk in 1940 was such; a mass retreat before Hitler’s forces was seen as a glorious success against all the odds, shipping the troops across the Channel in an armada of small boats. For Americans, the battle of the Alamo against the Mexican Army in 1836 was a glorious defeat.

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Israelis Happy at Home but Glum About Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - September 29, 2011 - 12:00am

With the start of the Jewish New Year at sunset on Wednesday, a traditional time for stock-taking in Israel, the public mood seemed paradoxical: a growing disillusionment with the prospect of Middle East peace yet a marked sense of satisfaction with life here. That gap, reflected and discussed in news media commentaries, was evident in a survey of Israeli Jews published on Wednesday in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot. Two-thirds of the respondents said there was no chance — ever — of achieving peace with the Palestinians. But asked if Israel was a good place to live, 88 percent said yes.

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Palestinian statehood bid stokes tensions in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Joel Greenberg - September 29, 2011 - 12:00am

In this village tucked among the rocky hills of the northern West Bank, flags are flying to celebrate the bid for membership of a Palestinian state in the United Nations. A poster in the village center carries a picture of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is riding a wave of popularity after defying U.S. pressure and submitting the membership application last week.

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Clinton, Egypt FM call for negotiations
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
September 29, 2011 - 12:00am

The Egyptian foreign minister and his US counterpart called on Israelis and Palestinians to resume talks in a joint press conference on Wednesday. "Negotiations should resume as soon as possible between Israelis and Palestinians with clear terms of reference and with a clearly defined time-line," Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr told reporters after a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington. "Israeli illegal settlement activities continue to be an impediment in the road for peace, and we would like to see them stop," he added.

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A win-win strategy for the Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Andrew Kydd - (Opinion) September 29, 2011 - 12:00am

Everyone knows that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' bid for statehood through the United Nations Security Council will fail. Even if the Palestinians get the nine votes needed , the United States will veto it. And yet the strategy is brilliant. Why? Because the Palestinians win even if they lose.

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PA: We are one vote shy of a majority in Security Council
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
September 29, 2011 - 12:00am

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Thursday that the Palestinians have received approval from eight members of the UN Security Council in support of their bid for full membership to the United Nations. If nine members of the Security Council vote in favor of the Palestinian state bid, the the resolution will pass, unless one of the council's five permanent members uses a veto. While the US, one of those five, has said before that it would veto the Palestinian resolution, it has also stated that it would rather not be forced to use the veto.

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Palestinians deny bid to remove Tony Blair from Quartet
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC World News
by Jon Donnison - September 29, 2011 - 12:00am

Mr Blair, a former UK prime minister, has held the position of special envoy for four years. Palestinians see him as biased towards the Israelis. The Quartet, made up of the US, Russia, the EU and UN, was established in 2002 to help mediate peace in the region. There have been no direct Israeli-Palestinian talks for more than a year. A spokesman for the PA said that while there was great unhappiness with Mr Blair's role as envoy, his removal was not a priority. He said there were no plans to formally ask for Mr Blair to be replaced. 'Suspicion'

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