Date
Type

Donors Pledge Aid For Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Karin Laub - December 17, 2007 - 1:18pm

The world rallied to the support of the embattled Palestinian government Monday, and the co-chairman of a donors' conference said he was confident they could meet a $5.6 billion target in aid. World leaders at the conference also urged Israel to ease restrictions on movement in the West Bank and Gaza to make a recovery of the Palestinian economy possible. Some 90 countries and international organizations came together in Paris for the biggest pledging conference in more than a decade.

»

The Right Wing's Jerusalem Gambit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Salon.com
by Gregory Levey - December 17, 2007 - 1:18pm

On Nov. 26, the U.S. State Department got hit with an unexpected barrage of phone calls. The Coordinating Council on Jerusalem, a new coalition of American groups with hard-line views on Israel, was on the line -- all of the lines. Or so the group said two days later in a press release, proudly proclaiming that with 10,000 calls in less than 48 hours it had managed to overload the State Department's voice-mail system.

»

Sealed Off By Israel, Gaza Reduced To Beggary
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Scott Wilson - December 17, 2007 - 1:16pm

The batteries are the size of a button on a man's shirt, small silvery dots that power hearing aids for several hundred Palestinian students taught by the Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children in Gaza City. Now the batteries, marketed by Radio Shack, are all but used up. The few that are left are losing power, turning voices into unintelligible echoes in the ears of Hala Abu Saif's 20 first-grade students.

»

The Washington Post reports from Gaza on the increasing humanitarian toll borne by its civilian residents due to the blockade of the territory (1.) Salon sheds light on the new coalition of the religious right-wing aiming to prevent any return of sharing of Jerusalem with the Palestinians as part of a future peace settlement (3.) The Independent (UK) looks at Saudi reluctance to commit budgetary support to the Abbas/Fayyad government (5.) The Telegraph (UK) reports on statements by Palestinian president Abbas at the Paris donor conference warning of the consequences of insufficient financial support for the Palestinians (7.) An Arab News (Saudi Arabia) opinion by Jonathan Power examines Israel's excessive reliance on military power in the face of an Arab world not posing such a threat (8.) In Miftah, Caelum Moffatt analyzes the challenges facing both the two and one state solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (10.) A Haaretz (Israel) editorial sees the establishment of a Palestinian unity government as the only way to end militant rocket fire into Israel from Gaza (11.) Also in Haaretz is an examination of how the issue of removal of Israeli roadblocks in the occupied West Bank will feature prominently in today's Paris donor conference (13.)

American Task Force on Palestine - 1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 725, Washington DC 20006 - Telephone: 202-262-0017