Palestinian leadership meeting in Ramallah on Sunday decided to push ahead with plans to seek international recognition of statehood at the United Nations in September. In a preemptive response to Israeli charges that the move would violate the Oslo Accords ban on unilateral actions and deal a death-blow to the negotiation process, the Palestinians said the move “will boost efforts to continue real negotiations.” They added that the Palestinians will remain willing to negotiate on the basis of the Arab Initiative and the Quartet-backed peace process. The U.N. option is strongly opposed by the Obama administration as well as by the Israelis. The apparent Palestinian response to international opposition to the move is to claim it is supported by President Obama’s own timetable and that it will help, not hinder, the established peace process. It remains unclear what the role of the U.N. will be since the General Assembly cannot deal with membership issues absent an enabling resolution from the Security Council, which the U.S. administration has threatened to veto. Meanwhile, in Washington, the Congressional Research Service has issued its report on the issue of funding a Palestinian unity government in which Hamas participates because of its presence on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. The report, which says that the $600 million received from the U.S. makes the Palestinians “the world’s largest per capita recipients of international foreign aid,” concludes that, “The power-sharing or ‘unity’ government expected in the wake of the May 2011 Fatah-Hamas agreement will not be eligible for U.S. aid if Hamas is included in the government and does not change its stance towards Israel – possibly subject to some limited exceptions.”