Amidst – or perhaps immediately after – the war in Gaza, international attention refocused on the Israeli-Palestinian political arena. On November 29, 2012, the PLO under Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is likely to request a United Nations vote on international recognition of Palestine as a "non-member state" ("permanent observer") of the United Nations, resuming the statehood initiative that began last year. The date marks the anniversary of the 1947 General Assembly resolution on the partition of the British Mandate in Eretz Israel into two states – one Jewish and one Arab.
