Thursday night, Nov. 29, the UN General Assembly grants Palestine non-member observer status within the 1967 borders by majority vote. But to which Palestinian rule does it apply?  Abbas’s Fatah is fading, whereas the extremist Hamas in the Gaza Strip is a rising force. If it qualifies for a place in the Sunni Middle East grouping Egypt, Turkey and Qatar are building with US backing and Israeli approval, Hamas may become the beneficiary of the upgraded Palestinian status won by Abbas.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is reported by debkafile as berating Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for the powerful presentation of his case to the UN General Assembly for confronting Iran with red lines, instead of failed diplomacy and sanctions Thursday, Sept. 27. Neither released statements. President Barack Obama would not tolerate the Israeli leader having a say in his Iran agenda, she reportedly said, before announcing that the world powers had decided to go back to negotiations with Tehran.

After the UN gridlock on the Syrian crisis Thursday, an American delegation headed by Fred Hoff drew a blank in talks at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow Friday, June 8, with Syrian expert, Mikhail Bogdanov. Russia flatly rejected President Barack Obama’s proposal to post 5,000 armed UN monitors in Syria, most of them Russian troops.  Moscow and Tehran calculate that the higher the flames of civil war in Syria, the more the US will be blamed for the bloodshed.They therefore refuse to join any international effort to stop it.

Iran stalled the US Secretary and UN-Arab League Envoy Kofi Annan’s plan for a contact group based on five permanent Security Council members and Iran to handle the Syrian impasse, refusing to join the group so long as it faces nuclear conditions. Tehran's non-cooperation on Syria reflected its flat-out rejection of the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s demand that Iran come to the nuclear talks in Moscow “ready to take concrete steps” to curb its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity.

In their speeches to the UN General Assembly Friday, Sept. 23, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas agreed only on the importance of reviving peace talks. Otherwise they were daggers drawn.  Yet the Middle East Quartet later issued a call for both to start peace talks in a month to end within a year. First, the Palestinian leader handed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon a formal request for Palestinian membership.

Israel has mobilized 22,000 police alongside thousands of soldiers, declaring the country on the highest level of preparedness for violent riots Friday, Sept. 23, when the Palestinians hold prayers and rallies in support of their application for UN membership. Radical groups are planning to break into settlements and Israeli city residential areas.  The Palestinian Religious Affairs Minister has ordered all mosques, especially al Aqsa, to keep on shouting Allah is Great through loudspeakers turned up to maximum volume.

Accounts of the big diplomatic showdown at the United Nations over the Palestinian bid for statehood to be filed Friday, Sept. 23 are premature. Neither the Security Council nor the UN General Assembly will be making decisions this week; US President Barack Obama will not yet be called on to exercise his veto although he remains stuck with the Palestinian dilemma.  debkafile: The Palestinian application is likely to be put on hold for weeks if not months, during which Palestinian independence celebrations could turn violent.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas surprised a group of Israeli intellectuals whom he received in Ramallah Monday, Sept. 5, by informing them that he had met Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Amman on Aug. 24. debkafile's sources disclose that the Barak-Abbas conversation in Jordan was more businesslike than diplomatic. It revolved around the Palestinian UN application to be submitted on Sep. 20 and clear security limits laid down by Barak for the Palestinian popular street response. Jordan's intelligence chief was also present.

For two years, Turkey has tirelessly maligned Israel, aided its enemies and schemed to destroy its army's strategic value as a key American ally. This campaign hit a serious contretemps in the UN report out Friday, Sept. 2 which justified Israel's Gaza blockade and its navy's interception of a Turkish vessel bent on breaching that blockade, although Israel was assailed for its "excessive response" to the violence of Turkish extremists.  Ankara thereupon expelled the Israeli ambassador and suspended its military accords with Israel.

The rush of military advances claimed by Libyan rebels and the rumored near collapse of Muammar Qaddafi's army and his imminent flight are designed, debkafile's sources report, as a smokescreen for current occurrences. One is the semi-secret opening of Libyan government-rebel talks on the Tunisian island of Djerba Saturday and their significant progress. Another is the deep divisions in the rebel leadership. debkafile has for weeks been reporting on talks afoot on Qaddafi's incremental departure from power. 

Israel's military, police and Shin Bet security service are drilling extreme scenarios of possible Palestinian disturbances, mass rallies or even terrorist attacks in September – although there is no specific intelligence of a security threat in the offing. The authorities have also set up "September Command Centers" so as not to be caught off guard. The intelligence updates fed them on Palestinian activities contain no signs so far of organized Palestinian preparations for disorders beyond some talk at local Fatah cell level.

Early Monday Aug. 1, undeterred by international condemnation, President Bashar Assad broadened his bloody tank assault to all of northern Syria – a 20,000 square kilometer area almost the size of Israel. He is now waging war on the 3.5 million inhabitants of Hama, Deir al-Zour, Homs, Idlib, Ar-Raqqah and Abu Kemal, after inflicting a one-day death toll Sunday of 150 – 120 in Hama, 30 in Deir el-Zur and more than 1,000 injured.
Syrian armored forces are running into heavy resistance, increasing desertions.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan applied the brakes to the process of reconciliation with Israel when he learned Wednesday, July 6, that the UN inquiry commission into last year's Turkish-led flotilla had ruled Israel's naval blockade on Gaza legal. Eight Turks and a Turkish-American were killed in a clash with Israeli commandos who boarded the Mavi Marmora. The UN ruling meant that Israel was within its rights and the Turkish vessel's attempt to break the blockade was illegal. 

President Barack Obama has shelved any serious effort to generate Israel-Palestinian negotiations for at least two years, debkafile's exclusive sources report from Washington. "It's a second term issue," he is quoted as telling his advisers. Only in November 2012 will he know if he is returned for another term as president and then too is unlikely to get back to the Israeli-Palestinian issue for several more months – "depending largely how the Arab Revolt" goes.

With minutes to spare, Hizballah called off its plan Wednesday night, Jan. 19, to lay siege to UN offices in Beirut and UNIFIL patrols in the South, debkafile's military sources report.  It was planned to blackmail the UN Secretary into reassessing the UN tribunal's indictments of Hizballah officials for the murder of Rafiq Hariri six years ago, after the tribunal warned that the state of Lebanon would be held accountable for flouting its orders, whichever government was in power.

The UN has turned down Lebanon's demand to intervene in delineating its sea border following Israel's Leviathan gas strike in the Mediterranean, billed as the world's biggest in a decade. Cyprus responded by announcing the Texas-based US firm Noble Energy - partners with Israel's Delek Energy group in Leviathan – had been licensed to explore a 1,250 square-mile island block bordering on Israeli waters.
Turkey, Syria and Lebanon prepare to fight joint Israel-Cypriot energy exploration ventures. They may be joined by Egypt and Palestinians. 

With two more vessels due to sail within 48 hours to continue the challenge to Israel's Gaza blockade, Israel's deputy defence minister Mattan Vilnai stressed the Israeli commando raid on the pro-Palestinian flotilla succeeded in its mission - although the loss of life was regrettable. Mistakes were made but the IDF would learn from them and defend the blockade in other ways, he said.

He dismissed rising demands at home for the defence minister Ehud Barak to step down.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas complained to the UN about Israel's enforcement of order on Temple Mount Friday, March 5, even though the disturbances were staged by radical Hamas and Islamist elements to destroy the US-mediate peace track which he has agreed to join.

Israel's report to Ban Ki-Moon supposed to defend IDF conduct in the Gaza Operation adds weight to the war's critics by naming two high-ranking commanders who were disciplined for exceeding orders by allowing the UN center in Gaza to come under artillery attack. Their fellow-commanders are furious, say the two officers have been placed at risk of international prosecution.