<img attachment="palestine-flag.gif" align="left" class="frame">The article, <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/abbas_to_seek_palestinian_statehood_at_the_un_next_week_20110916" source="Truthdig" author="">Abbas to Seek Palestinian Statehood at the U.N. Next Week</a> describes the (relatively) momentous decision approaching the U.N. in the next week. <bq style="margin-left: 230px">Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced that he would seek recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations Security Council next week, a move that intensifies already considerable tensions in one of the Middle East’s most intractable conflicts. By approaching the U.N. directly, Abbas will circumvent Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations that have gone on for the last 20 years.</bq> The article <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/world/middleeast/Abbas-Security-Council-United-Nations-Vote.html?_r=1&emc=na&pagewanted=all" source="New York Times" author="Ethan Bronner">Palestinians Set Bid for U.N. Seat, Clashing With U.S.</a>, writes that <iq>An American veto of the Palestinian bid for full membership would serve as another blow to American credibility in the Arab world</iq>. This is probably true, but America doesn't seem to care. The New York Times's own podcasts as well as those from NPR and the BBC are filled with administration spokespersons who burble that the U.S. will, of course, veto Palestinian statehood with viable explanation whatsoever. The vote is presented as a <i>fait accompli</i> and an explanation is required only by those too thick-headed to "get it". The casual arrogance and insensitivity to millions of people living in an open-air prison and the notion that they should be denied statehood as a matter of course is completely irreconcilable with the simultaneously hustled notion that the U.S. is some sort of moral compass for the world. That the New York Times still even pays lip service to the notion that the <bq>For the Obama administration, the move poses an acute dilemma. It has vowed to use its veto because it argues that the only viable way toward Palestinian statehood is through direct talks with Israel.</bq> American prefers it this way because it has been able to repeatedly torpedo any chance of success these talks may have had over the course of over 40 years. It is abundantly clear which shape Israel would like the solution to take---complete subsumption of the land remaining to the Palestinians into greater Israel---and the U.S. is 100% on-board, mild murmurs to the contrary notwithstanding and to be interpreted more as lip-service to the cause of supporting the perception of the U.S. as a shining city on the hill. That Palestine is seeking full statehood is good; accepting the weaker variant offered by their disingenuous enemies would have been worse than useless---would have been, in fact, a squandering of the energy and goodwill toward the Arab countries engendered in the rest of the world by the Arab Spring and other recent uprisings. If even they don't get anything---which is likely, given the U.S. supremacy in the U.N.---they will have forced the U.S. attitude into the light and perhaps finally put and end to the lie that the U.S. is a plain dealer with no horse in the race in the Israeli/Palestinian occupation. And who knows? Maybe the U.S. will blink and concede something, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Look for the Obama speech trying desperately to spin whatever the U.S. decides in a manner that he thinks will appeal to what we all have agreed to call his "base" (though his real base is the people who can afford to pay $38,500 per plate at a fundraiser).