OBAMA Y SARKO DISCORDES EN LA ONU ACERCA DE PALESTINA

Top of the Agenda: Abbas Moves Ahead with UN Statehood Bid Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will submit a formal membership application (WSJ) to the United Nations Security Council tomorrow, despite a plea by U.S. President Barack Obama for Palestinians to abandon a unilateral bid for statehood. In an address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Obama said there could be "no shortcut" (al-Jazeera)to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He said the only way to create a Palestinian state was through direct negotiations, not a UN resolution. Obama reportedly told Abbas in a private meeting that the United States would veto (Telegraph) a Palestinian membership application. However, French President Nicolas Sarkozy rejected Obama's approach (NYT) and threw France's weight behind the Palestinian bid, indicating that the United States may no longer be the prime arbiter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Analysis Overshadowed by the issue of Palestinian statehood, President Barack Obama offered a strong defense of Israel but little in the way of specifics to revive the Mideast peace process, writes CFR's James Lindsay. American Jews are unmoved by attacks on Obama over Israel. But an agenda-setting Republican-Likud alliance is dangerous, writes the New America Foundation's Daniel Levy in the Guardian. For the Palestinians and much of the international community, the things Obama left unsaid in his UNGA address reinforced a growing sense that U.S. domestic politics restrain Washington from playing an honest broker role, writes TIME's Tony Karon. This CFR Crisis Guide offers an in-depth, multimedia look at the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its geopolitical repercussions.