West Bank: Media and political analysis of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s diplomatic gambit to achieve statehood via a United Nations declaration, rather than through negotiations with Israel, is increasingly revolving around the diplomatic consequences of Abbas’s open “defiance” of U.S. President Obama. The language, which was used yesterday by Reuters and this morning by The Telegraph and echoed by the Wall Street Journal and others, highlights what will inevitably be a heated diplomatic battle in the aftermath of the Palestinian move. The U.S. President has repeatedly demanded that the Palestinians delay their petition, which violates decades of Palestinian commitments to pursuing peace with Israel in a bilateral framework and would trigger automatic diplomatic and financial sanctions by the United States. Instead the Palestinian Authority has confirmed that it will formally request non-member state status on November 29th. Destroying the decades-old framework for securing peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will likely complicate efforts to future secure peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.