Nigeria: Nation Shies On Palestinian UN Bid
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from All Africa
October 4, 2011 - 12:00am

Nigeria is refusing to say how it will vote when the United Nations Security Council decides on the Palestinians' request for U.N. membership, as increasing diplomatic pressure mounts on the oil-rich West African nation. Nigeria appears to be a crucial vote as Palestinians try to secure support from at least nine of the 15 council members. The U.S. has said it will veto the request. However, the U.S. could avoid that if Palestinians fail to get those nine votes.

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US Defense Chief Criticizes Palestinian Aid Block
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Voice of America
October 4, 2011 - 12:00am

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has criticized U.S. lawmakers for suspending $200 million in aid slated to fund development projects in the Palestinian territories. Panetta said Monday at a news conference in Tel Aviv with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that this is "no time to withhold those funds." He said it is a "critical" moment in the region, as U.S. officials continue to urge Palestinians and Israelis to negotiate a peace deal.

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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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Palestinians could pursue war crimes charges without full statehood: ICC prosecutor
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Star
by Olivia Ward - September 29, 2011 - 12:00am

In the fierce debate over the Palestinian bid for UN membership, one unseen presence has cast a long shadow. It’s that of Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court — the body Israel has long feared would take up Palestinian allegations of war crimes if its statehood bid is successful. A few blocks away from the UN this week, the man at the centre of the controversy said if Palestine becomes a member state, or a lower-ranked non-member observer state, it could be eligible to pursue claims against Israel.

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U.S.: Republican plan would cut aid to Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
(Blog) September 29, 2011 - 12:00am

U.S. House Republican leaders signaled this week that they are serious about cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority if its leaders continue their quest for U.N. recognition as a sovereign state. The Republican leaders of the House Appropriations Committee this week released a preliminary 2012 spending plan that would prohibit aid to the Palestinian Authority unless the State Department certifies that the Palestinians aren’t seeking to gain full membership in the United Nations.

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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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After U.N. Drama, Little Hope for Peace Breakthrough
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Forward
by Nathan Guttman - (Opinion) September 27, 2011 - 12:00am

An intense week of high-profile speeches and backroom diplomacy, which reached its climax with an official Palestinian bid for statehood, has reshaped the Middle East peace process, eroding the American position as lead player — which may, in fact, be President Obama’s strategy.

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Obama at the UN on Israel-Palestine: Good Politics, Poor Diplomacy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Atlantic
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) September 23, 2011 - 12:00am

If you'd wanted to gauge how strained relations between the Obama administration and the Palestinian leadership have become, all you'd need do is watch the shaking heads of the Palestinian representatives at the United Nations General Assembly during the U.S. President's speech there on Wednesday. Obama reiterated the American commitment to a two-state solution and the creation of an independent Palestine, both established U.S. policy. Rhetorically, however, his speech recognized most of the core elements of the Israeli narrative but virtually none of the Palestinian one.

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The Do-Nothing Strategy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy
by Aaron David Miller - (Analysis) September 23, 2011 - 12:00am

Governing is about choosing. And a much-diminished American president has made his choice. Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking isn't and shouldn't be Barack Obama's top priority. Getting reelected is. And that means carefully husbanding his eroding political currency and expending it on matters domestic and economic. Despite all the kerfuffle at the United Nations this week, the last thing he needs to do is pick an unproductive fight with Israel or the Republicans on an Israeli-Palestinian peace process that has been dead for some time now.

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