Obama making final push to blunt Palestinian bid

[The Northerner]

NEW YORK (AP) — Scrambling to head off a diplomatic clash, President Barack Obama will publicly push for the Palestinians to drop a statehood bid when he addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday.

Obama will follow up his speech with separate meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders as he seeks to coax both parties back to direct peace talks.

At the same time, U.S. officials are conceding that they probably cannot prevent Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas from moving forward with a request to the U.N. Security Council for full Palestinian membership.

Recognizing that Abbas seems intent to proceed, Obama is expected to privately ask the Palestinian leader to essentially drop the move for statehood recognition after Abbas delivers a formal letter of intent to the U.N. on Friday.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jW_JYUbVAHkyIg3t-DNNuavSXabg

[Fearless]

1. This is pathetic.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. Good.

[LadyLeigh]

3. lol. There are hardly any non-racist reasons why a person would oppose this.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. According to you? LOL!

But, at least you acknowledge there are some.

[rpannier]

5. I thought Abbas lost the election

Didn't realize he was still in charge

On another note: The Chinese are supporting the Palestinian bid.
They're unlikely to back off

[Behind the Aegis]

6. Elections were cancelled.

[rpannier]

7. Yes you are correct

Apparently because Fatah couldn't get their act together

"Four year term of local councils in Palestinian Territories expired in January 2009. Council of Ministers called for local elections to be held on 17 July 2010, but after Fatah proved incapable of agreeing on list of candidates, the call for elections was canceled on 10 June 2010."

So again, how is Abbas the leader? His party can't even provide a slate of candidates

on edit: Hamas won the previous election

[azurnoir]

8. Time for e-d-u-c-a-t-i-o-n Fatah cancelled the elections because Hamas will not allow voting in Gaza

the reason Hamas did this is because they will lose it all this time now as to Hamas winning Hamas won the majority of seats in the Parliamentary elections ya know like the Republicans won the majority of seats in the House, Fatah won the Presidential elections ya know like the Democrats won here understand now?

[Owlet]

9. Another bad move

Does Obama really believe that talking with these two is going to change anything? Why does he put himself into these situations? It just provides headline material for the Right: "Obama Fails to Block Palestinian Statehood Bid". Just stay in DC, tell Susan Rice to cast the veto. Don't provide another opportunity to get your credibility and relevance shredded some more.

Just my