Some are more equal at the UN
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Aijaz Zaka Syed - (Opinion) September 30, 2011 - 12:00am

US President Barack Obama’s shameful turnaround over Palestine has exposed the ‘audacity of hope’ for what it is — a sham. More important, it has turned the spotlight on the world body and the crass hypocrisy that goes on in there in the name of peace and international diplomacy. Let’s face it. The world body has ended up as a plaything in the hands of world powers.

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Standing firmly for Palestine
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Khalaf Ahmad al Habtoor - (Opinion) September 30, 2011 - 12:00am

Ever since Yasser Arafat passed away, the Palestinians have lacked a strong leader with the authority to speak on their behalf. His successor Mahmoud Abbas took a different approach on statehood in the belief the road to peace ran through Washington. And to that end, he has been unfailingly conciliatory, even on some of his people's basic demands. His statements were always designed to be non-inflammatory and whereas the Israelis and their American backers thought of him as a good guy, Palestinians themselves expected a lot more from him.

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More snubs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) September 30, 2011 - 12:00am

Hardly a week has passed since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made an impassioned plea for full Palestinian United Nations membership at the opening session of the UN General Assembly session; the two loud opponents - the US and Israel - have been lambasted by Arabs, Israelis and even some Americans.

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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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Two Weeks at the United Nations: a New Regional Order Taking Shape
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Raghida Dergham - (Opinion) September 30, 2011 - 12:00am

Over the past two weeks, the UN General Assembly witnessed a historic event that soon became the focus of diplomats and the media equally. The event was none other than the address by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the international community, demanding full membership for Palestine at the United Nations, in what has proven to be a stand for pride and one that has changed the balance of power at numerous levels, both regionally and internationally. Yet the Palestinian episode did not alone engross the heads of state and ministers.

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Israeli stalling hints at real agenda
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) September 29, 2011 - 12:00am

On Wednesday, the Israeli cabinet rejected a formula proposed by the Quartet of mediators - the US, UN, EU, and Russia - in a bid to bring Israelis and Palestinian back to the negotiating table. This followed by a day Israel's latest step toward building 1,100 more homes in the Gilo district of East Jerusalem. In grand understatement, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, labelled the settlement expansion "counterproductive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties."

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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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