Taking a Stand, and Shedding Arafat’s Shadow
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner, Neil MacFarquhar - September 21, 2011 - 12:00am

At the baronial Morgan Library in Midtown Manhattan the other night, President Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, stood quietly along the edge of a diplomatic reception, avoiding the animated gossip and flowing Champagne. Only when the host noted that Mr. Abbas was in the room, and expressed hope that his quest for Palestinian membership in the United Nations would produce real sovereignty, did the crowd take notice.

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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..."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Last-minute deal could avert a collision course at the UN
In Print by Hussein Ibish - The National (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.

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Abbas meets UN chief Ban Ki-moon; Netanyahu calls on PA to renew talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Avi Issacharoff, Natasha Mozgovaya, Barak Ravid - (Analysis) September 20, 2011 - 12:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday that he was determined to ask the Security Council to accept Palestine as a full UN member. Abbas said he would in fact be seeking full recognition for a Palestinian state and would initiate this on Friday after his speech to the UN General Assembly. The United States and Israel claim this move could lead to a disaster.

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Face-off at the U.N.
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
(Editorial) September 20, 2011 - 12:00am

The looming United Nations vote on Palestinian statehood is not a cause for celebration — for Palestinians or anyone else. It is merely further evidence of the utter stalemate of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which once promised to deliver a two-state solution but which during the last few years has deteriorated into a depressing morass.

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Anti-Israel speech should be protected, not banned, on American campuses
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Justin D. Martin - (Opinion) September 20, 2011 - 12:00am

An Israeli legal group sent more than 100 US college and university presidents a letter this month, warning them to crack down on anti-Semitism and terrorist activities. Seems reasonable enough. But the letter, drafted by the Israel Law Center, contains suggestions that come perilously close to stunting First Amendment protections for unpopular speech.

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Is Abbas going for broke?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
by Walid Awad - (Analysis) September 20, 2011 - 12:00am

Soon after his inauguration as president of the United States, Barack Obama embarked on important visits to capitals of Arab and Muslim nations. He made speeches in Cairo and Istanbul to try and persuade Arabs and Muslims to alter their negative views of the US and its policies in the region. To an extent, he succeeded. American flags were raised and even embraced by Libyan demonstrators, and US flags are no longer burned when Arab masses demonstrate to demand freedom and liberty.

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