Will settlers become illegal residents of Palestine?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Daniel Edelson - November 17, 2009 - 1:00am

Legal experts told Ynet Monday that if the Palestinians go through with their plan of unilaterally declaring a state in the West Bank, the settlers there could find their status changed to that of illegal residents. The dean of Bar Ilan University's faculty of law, Professor Yaffa Zilbershatz, told Ynet that in the case of Palestinian statehood, "the settlers would become a minority that an enlightened state must respect".

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Donald Macintyre: Palestinians throw down challenge to Obama and UN
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald MacIntyre - (Analysis) November 17, 2009 - 1:00am

As so often in the Middle East, we have been here before. The latest suggestion – that a frustrated Palestinian leadership would unilaterally declare a state and invite international recognition for it – is not new. It was made a decade ago by Yasser Arafat when Benjamin Netanyahu, then as now, was Prime Minister. It was made again after the collapse of the Camp David talks a year later, when then Prime Minister Ehud Barak, like some of Mr Netanyahu's more hawkish ministers now, threatened to annex the most populous settlements in the West Bank in retaliation.

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The Only Hope Left?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy
by Daoud Kuttab - November 17, 2009 - 1:00am

Mahmoud Abbas is in a bind. Faced with a seemingly insurmountable impasse to negotiations with Israel, the Palestinian Authority president can either resign from his PLO chairmanship or come up with some serious, unilateral action to break the deadlock. With hopes that Barack Obama would stand up to the right-wing Israeli leadership dashed, an unwillingness to return to violent resistance, and the inability to resign his presidency of the PA in protest, the Palestinian leader has no alternative but to declare a Palestinian state unilaterally.

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Hamas rejects PA’s UN move for statehood
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by HIsham Abu Taha - November 17, 2009 - 1:00am

Hamas rejected Monday a Palestinian suggestion to seek UN Security Council support for unilaterally declaring a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Such a declaration would have no meaning and was merely an attempt by the rival Palestinian camp of President Mahmoud Abbas to pretend it had an alternative to faltering peace negotiations, other than armed struggle, said Hamas, which is ruling Gaza.

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Recognize Palestinian statehood now
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - November 17, 2009 - 1:00am

The failure of the Obama administration to launch a serious negotiating process between the PLO and Israel has led to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, announcing that he will not seek re-election. He cited Washington's inability to ensure an Israeli settlement construction freeze as well as American bias toward Israel as the main reasons.

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Plan to Expand Jerusalem Settlement Angers U.S.
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - November 17, 2009 - 1:00am

Israel said Tuesday that it had advanced plans to expand a Jewish district of Jerusalem in territory that was captured in the 1967 war and that the Palestinians claim as part of their future state. The move is likely to further complicate the Obama administration’s faltering efforts to restart peace talks.

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A Mideast Truce
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Roger Cohen - (Opinion) November 16, 2009 - 1:00am

I’ve grown so pessimistic about Israel-Palestine that I find myself agreeing with Israel’s hard-line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman: “Anyone who says that within the next few years an agreement can be reached ending the conflict simply doesn’t understand the situation and spreads delusions.” That’s the lesson of early Obama. The president tried to rekindle peace talks by confronting Israel on settlements, coaxing Palestinians to resume negotiations, and reaching out to the Muslim world. The effort has failed.

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Palestinian threat to declare statehood seeks to put onus on Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Leslie Susser - November 16, 2009 - 1:00am

Frustrated by a lack of progress toward statehood, the Palestinians are considering taking their case to the United Nations. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had hopes a more Muslim-friendly U.S. administration would press Israel into a peace deal on terms favorable to the Palestinians. When this failed to materialize, Abbas announced plans to resign. Now he is following up with a threat to go to the U.N. Security Council to ask for recognition of a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders, with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.

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Peace can be made despite Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) November 16, 2009 - 1:00am

It might be tempting to dismiss as diplomatic bluster the statement by Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestinians, that the Palestinian Liberation Organisation would declare statehood unilaterally in the near future. Certainly it would not be a novel analysis given how rife the peace process is with grandstanding and brinkmanship on both sides. The PLO tried it twice before under Yasser Arafat, who backed down both times in return for concessions and reassurances. But this time is different.

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MIDEAST: The 'Unknown' Fight the Illegal
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Jerrold Kessel, Pierre Klochendler - November 12, 2009 - 1:00am

"Make sure your father gets this," the municipal inspector tells a ten-year-old boy at the gate of the concrete house in an alleyway in the Al-Bustan quarter of Silwan, a Palestinian neighbourhood right under the shadow of the walled Old City. "This" is a court-approved demolition notice, "No. 59". It's for a house under imminent threat of being torn down by the Israeli authorities because it does not have the requisite building permit. The demolition notice is headed: "To Unknown Addressee".

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