Week In The News: Palestinian Statehood, Tax Pledge, Susan Rice

Cracks in the GOP tax pledge. Obama and Romney do lunch. Palestinian statehood at the U.N.  Uproar in Egypt. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

The happy talk and camera grins fading off the fiscal cliff negotiations this week. It’s colder and tougher again in Washington. The president says high-end taxes are going up. John Boehner says “get serious.” Some Republicans wavered on the no new taxes pledge, but the cliff comes closer.

At the U.N., observer state status for the Palestinians, and the US and Israel lonely in opposition. We’ve got uproar in Egypt. Obama and Romney in a quiet White House lunch. Powerball mania. Susan Rice, grilled again.

This hour, On Point: our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
-Tom Ashbrook

Kristen Welker, White House correspondent for NBC News.

Gideon Rose, editor of Foreign Affairs.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

Foreign Policy "The Israel-Hamas war has refocused international attention on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and increased the stakes surrounding U.S. President Barack Obama's handling of the Palestinian bid for recognition at the United Nations as a non-member state. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas intends to submit that bid on November 29th — the 65th anniversary of the U.N. resolution to partition the territory of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states."

Daily Beast "It’s a gracious move that makes the president appear bipartisan just as he is calling on the Republicans to compromise on his tax plan to avert the fiscal cliff, a central issue in the campaign. But it also presents Romney with a stark choice."

New York Times "Fast-food workers at several restaurants in New York walked off the job on Thursday, firing the first salvo in what workplace experts say is the biggest effort to unionize fast-food workers ever undertaken in the United States. The effort — backed by community and civil rights groups, religious leaders and a labor union — has engaged 40 full-time organizers in recent months to enlist workers at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Domino’s, Taco Bell and other fast-food restaurants across the city."