Israeli-palestinian Dispute, Palestinian Declaration Of Statehood | featured news

After failing to head off a vote in the United Nations on Thursday that would upgrade the Palestinian Authority’s status, the United States and Israel are looking ahead to how they can contain the damage from the approval.

The French foreign minister says France plans to vote in favor of recognition of a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly this week.

UNESCO voted overwhelmingly Monday to accept the Palestinian Authority as a member, setting the cultural agency on a confrontational path with the U.S. due to American law that prohibits funding of U.N. entities that grant state status to Palestinians.

A last-ditch American effort to head off a Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations faltered. President Obama tried to qualify his own call, just a year ago, for a Palestinian state.

Seeking to defuse a major diplomatic confrontation, President Obama said the only way to achieve the goal was for the Palestinians and Israelis to resume direct negotiations.

Wading into a tense foreign policy dispute, Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry and Mitt Romney on Tuesday criticized the Palestinian Authority's effort to seek a formal recognition of statehood by the U.N. General Assembly. The GOP rivals also used the jockeying at the U.S. to assail President Barack Obama's policy toward Israel.

The United States pressed ahead Monday with intensive talks aimed at averting a showdown over Palestinian statehood at the United Nations this week, asking key Muslim ally Turkey not to allow its rift with Israel to grow wider and hoping to coax cooperation from a noncommittal Russia....

The Palestinian president said Friday that he will ask the U.N. Security Council next week to endorse his statehood bid, a step that would risk a threatened U.S. veto in the council.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has told the Palestinians that they deserve a "viable" independent state with contiguous territory.

The United States would veto a Palestinian declaration of statehood in the United Nations Security Council, U.S. senators visiting Israel said Monday.