Palestine, Palestinian Declaration Of Statehood | featured news

Israel said on Sunday it was withholding this month's transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, after the United Nations' de facto recognition of a Palestinian state.

The United Nations voted overwhelmingly Thursday to recognize a Palestinian state, a victory decades in the making for the Palestinians after years of occupation and war. It was a sharp rebuke for Israel and the United States....

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.

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.