Palestinians seek to enhance UN status to observer state
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - October 24, 2012 - 12:00am

The Palestine Liberation Organization will distribute a position paper to European governments on Wednesday, asking to enhance Palestine's United Nations status to that of Observer State. The document will emphasize that the request is a follow-up to its existing application for UN membership, submitted on September 23, 2011.

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Israel not committed to two-state solution -Carter
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Ori Lewis, Maayan Lubell - October 23, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Monday said the Israeli-Palestinian peace process had reached a crisis point and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government was not pursuing a two-state solution. "That policy of promoting a two-state solution seems to be abandoned now and we are deeply concerned about this move towards this catastrophic so-called one-state choice ... this is a major concern," Carter told a news conference.

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Contempt for peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Merav Michaeli - (Opinion) October 23, 2012 - 12:00am

"It would be best for the European Union to concentrate now on the problems arising between the various peoples and nationalities on European soil," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in response to the EU's condemnation of Israel's plan to build 800 new housing units in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. "When those problems are satisfactorily solved, we will be happy to hear proposals from the EU on how to solve the problems with the Palestinians."

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The death of the Israel-Palestine two-state solution brings fresh hope
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Rachel Shabi - (Opinion) October 23, 2012 - 12:00am

We could argue over who killed it, but what's the point? It's increasingly obvious that a continued insistence on zombie peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians is deluded, because the two-state principle framing them is dead.

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That Poll's Apartheid Problem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Noam Shelef - (Opinion) October 23, 2012 - 12:00am

The front page of today's Haaretz featured an article by Gideon Levy about a dramatic survey of Israeli Jewish public opinion. I admire Gideon Levy. He's had the courage over the years to document some of the ugliest aspects of the occupation.

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Israel's missed opportunities
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Khaled Diab - (Opinion) October 22, 2012 - 12:00am

It is 39 years since the 6th October/Yom Kippur war of 1973. After the peace talks in Geneva following the war, Israel’s then-foreign minister, Abba Eban, the ever-articulate founding father of Israeli diplomacy, quipped that, “The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

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In letter, Abbas tells Obama still wants 2 states
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
October 17, 2012 - 12:00am

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- President Mahmoud Abbas sent a letter to US President Barack Obama on Tuesday insisting his government was still committed to the two-state solution. The letter, according to Abbas' political adviser Nimir Hammad, explains that the intended bid to the UN General Assembly to obtain the status of a non-member state was not a unilateral move.

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Ulterior motives
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
(Editorial) October 17, 2012 - 12:00am

Palestine has once again faced vocal rejection of its statehood bid, this time in a statement from the United States declaring that such a move would set back the peace process. The U.S. has said the decision must include Israel, and has further warned European countries, in a private memo, not to support Palestine’s bid.

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Palestinian official reports "diminished hope" in peace process
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
October 16, 2012 - 12:00am

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Palestine said here Monday there were "diminished hopes" in the peace process with Israel to translate the two-state solution into reality, and urged the international community to act to help reach the goal. Riyad Mansour, the permanent Palestinian observer to the United Nations, made the statement as he was taking the floor at an open meeting of the UN Security Council on the current situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.

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Moving on From Two-State Solution
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Edward Edy Kaufman, Paul Scham - (Opinion) October 16, 2012 - 12:00am

The current Israeli-Palestinian stalemate is as comprehensive as it is unprecedented. All relevant parties — Israelis, Palestinians (both Fatah and Hamas), the United States, the European Union, the Arab world — are preoccupied with their own internal or regional political or economic issues, not to mention the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb and Israeli threats to attack. The only good news is that Israeli-Palestinian violence is also largely on hiatus — though by no means gone, as rockets fired at southern Israel occasionally remind us.

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