The Palestinians are the new Jews
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) September 22, 2011 - 12:00am

Look at the Palestinians and look at us. Look at their leaders and recall ours. Not, of course, those we have today, but those we once had, the ones who established the state for us. The Palestinians are the new Jews and their leaders are amazingly similar to the former Zionist leaders.

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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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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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The Palestinian Statehood Gambit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Wall Street Journal
(Analysis) September 20, 2011 - 12:00am

Are Palestinians entitled to a state? Before certain readers erupt at the mere suggestion that Palestinians may not be so entitled, we'd note that the Kurds—one of the oldest ethnic groups in the world—don't have a state. Neither do the Tamils of Sri Lanka, the Uighurs and Tibetans of China, the Basques of Spain, the Chechens of Russia or the Flemish of Belgium. The list of peoples with plausible claims to statehood is as long as the current number of U.N. member states, if not longer.

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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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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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Palestinians to seek full UN membership Sept. 23
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Mohammed Daraghmeh - September 15, 2011 - 12:00am

The Palestinians will ask the Security Council next week to accept them as a full member of the United Nations, the Palestinian foreign minister said Thursday, a move that would defy Washington's threat to veto the statehood bid. The remarks by Riad Malki came just ahead of the arrival in the West Bank of a senior U.S. diplomatic team that was in the region in a last-ditch effort to persuade the Palestinians to drop the U.N. bid. Although Malki did not close the door on compromise, his comments signaled the chances of breakthrough were slim.

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Israel prevents Palestinians from free movement
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Google News
by Diaa Hadid - September 15, 2011 - 12:00am

Ahmad Ayyash once had a construction job in Israel, earning good money. Now he is a goat herder struggling to eke out a living, barred from working in Israel and restricted from entering his olive grove next to this West Bank village. Ayyash's story is familiar to Palestinians, who face a complicated system of travel restrictions that Israel mostly developed during the height of violence between them and Palestinians, hoping to prevent militants from reaching the Jewish state and West Bank settlements.

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Palestinians Say a U.N. Gamble on Statehood Is Worth the Risks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - September 15, 2011 - 12:00am

It is far from clear what will happen when the Palestinians go to the United Nations next week to seek recognition of statehood. But the initiative is engaging a Palestinian public that had become deeply cynical after 20 years of intermittent Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

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