Abbas to Apply for Palestinian Statehood in September

For the first time ever, Israel and Hamas can agree on something: they don't like this move.

Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas has announced he will apply for full U.N. membership at the General Assembly when he visits New York in September. Abbas is also seeking an endorsement of Palestinian statehood from the U.N., which is unlikely to pass given the U.S. veto on the Security Council. Israeli officials (surprisingly) condemned the move, urging Abbas to preference bilateral over unilateral moves. Hamas, the militant party in charge of the Gaza Strip, also criticized the bid because it does not call for an Islamic state to take over all of Palestine and Israel at once. Despite a unity agreement with Abbas' Fatah party, prominent Hamas member Mahmoud al-Zahar called the UN approach a “political scam” and insisted that Hamas would never recognize the "fabricated state of Israel."