The members of UNESCO voted to admit Palestine on Monday October 31 leading to the US deciding not to make its $60million contribution, 1st. (A clause in the 1990 Appropriations Act forbids giving money to any UN body which accords member status to the PLO, 2nd). All see it as a sign of things to come

The Arab Awakening has broken all the rigidities of regimes round the southern and esstern Mediterannean. In this (abbreviated) essay, Tony Klug clesely examines the options now facing Israel and the Palestininans – including Hamas which must, he says, ‘openly purge its Covenant of its virulently anti-Semitic content’

Graham Usher analyses the changes in the state of play which may follow from the request for statehood recognition by the UN, including a revival of mass action. Second, Omar Barghouti spells out the hostility felt by many Palestinians to what they see as the weak and appeasing role of the PA, exemplified by their desire for UN recognition and for more negotiations with Israel

The PLO’s status derives from its claim to be sole representative of an entire people argues Dr Abdel Razzaq Takriti, allowing it to ‘encompass the Palestinian shatat [diaspora] in its entirety’. What will happen to the PLO and Palestinian refugees if the statehood bid to take the one UN place succeeds?

Guy Goodwin-Gill, Professor of International Refugee Law at Oxford University, wrote an opinion for the team preparing the Palestinian statehood bid that recognition could deprive the Palestinian diaspora of their right of return (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/238962-final-pdf-plo-statehood-opinionr-arb.html. for the original document) The question depends on the limited authority of the PA as a government, versus the PLO. Here Ma’an collects the opinion of four other experts

Joel Beinin examines the effect, or lack of it, of the Arab Spring on the players in Palestine’s future and concludes the 2-state solution is dead; 2nd, at a forum on Palestinian statehood, Samah Sabawi argued that the PA’s bid is a doomed strategy for resuming negotiations with Israel and will remain symbolic.

The PLO says the boycott law ‘turns settlements into sacred places’ and makes the Quartet irrelevant; below, a press release from the Palestinian BDS national committee, saying the law consolidates Israel’smove towards an oppressive, apartheid regime

Ali Abunimah asks the questions about the efficacy of the Fatah/Hamas deal, details unublished, in the face of intransigent Israeli control

Ahmad Samih Khalidi argues that the prospect of Palestinian statehood has never been stronger – but the PLO which has fought for it for over 4 decades is as much part of the crumbling Arab order as any other regime. The PLO and PA plan to go direct to the the UN General Assembly to seek recognition for a Palestinian state, and are likely to get it. But on the ground there is little support for this as a solution…

Amira Hass argues that the real failure of both the PLO/PA and of Hamas is their inability to translate the personal and collective stamina of the Palestinian people into a strategy of unarmed popular struggle: “Hamas and the PLO are in the thrall of their false status as two governments whose existence and maintenance have become a goal in itself. Had they not given up on their people as a decisive factor, the two rival forces would have listened to it, and before anything else found a way to end the dual rule.”

Over 1,600 PLO Negotiation Support Unit’s documents from 1999-2010 were leaked, published online by Al-Jazeera, and in print in a Guardian exclusive on 24 January. We provide a link to the documents and to some articles discussing their significance – including contributions by Nadia Hijab, Karma Nabulsi, Alastair Crooke, Akiva Eldar, Richard Silverstein the Magnes Zionist, Ali Abunimah and others.

Ramallah-based lawyer and former PLO advisor Diana Buttu finds no room for optimism about the outcome of the forthcoming talks. There is no support for them on the ground in the West Bank. Mahmoud Abbas lacks all legitimacy. It is Fatah rather than Hamas that is emerging isolated…

A new International Crisis Group report on the changing strategy of of PLO who “seek to redress the power imbalance with Israel by pressing their case internationally, reinvigorating statebuilding, and encouraging a measure of popular resistance…”