Date
Type

December 12th

Creative Approaches Needed In Mideast Peace Talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Philadelphia Inquirer
by Eric Trager - (Opinion) December 12, 2007 - 5:21pm

The Annapolis Conference heralded a new strategy in Middle East peacemaking. Whereas conventional wisdom held that domestically strong Israeli and Arab leaders were a prerequisite for fruitful negotiations, Annapolis attempted to work backward, using negotiations to strengthen two very weak leaders.

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Israel's Palestinians Speak Out
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Nation
by Nadim Rouhana - December 12, 2007 - 5:19pm

The Annapolis peace talks regard me as an interloper in my own land. Israel's deputy prime minister, Avigdor Lieberman, argues that I should "take [my] bundles and get lost." Henry Kissinger thinks I ought to be summarily swapped from inside Israel to the would-be Palestinian state.

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Splinter Group Bids To Keep The Outpost Movement Alive
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Dina Kraft - December 12, 2007 - 5:17pm

Her heart pounding, the 15-year-old girl with a long, honey-colored braid down her back scrambled down the steep hillside in the black of night, running from police who had swarmed in to evacuate her and others who had come to set up an illegal settlement outpost. It was a scene that has become familiar in the ongoing cat-and-mouse game between youths determined to spread Jewish settlement in the West Bank and the police charged with stopping them.

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Key Players In Mideast Talks May Remain Unseen
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - December 12, 2007 - 5:16pm

A handshake across a table and a spray of camera flashes will probably serve as starting gun of the first official Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in seven years Wednesday – talks aimed at producing a treaty on Palestinian statehood in 2008. Over the coming months, the talks will break into about a half-dozen subcommittees to tackle such issues as dividing Jerusalem and dealing with Palestinian refugees. But none of those discussions are likely to lead to breakthroughs necessary to clinch a final agreement, analysts say.

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Israel, Palestinians Launch Peace Talks In Discord
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Wafa Amr, Adam Entous - December 12, 2007 - 5:15pm

The first peace talks in seven years between Israel and the Palestinians opened in discord on Wednesday with the Palestinians demanding a halt to settlement building and Israel calling for a crackdown on militants. The tensions, coming just two weeks after a U.S.-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, highlighted the difficulties ahead for negotiators trying to reach agreement on a Palestinian state before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office in January 2009.

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December 11th

The Christian Science Monitor examines how back-channels may play a key role in upcoming Israeli-Palestinian negotiations (2.) The Jewish Telegraphic Agency looks at how some Israeli setters are attempting to build further settlement outposts in the occupied Palestinian territories in order to subvert peace negotiations (3.) A Philadelphia Inquirer opinion by Eric Trager urges the inclusion of a second Arab party to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to help each side overcome their respective weaknesses (5.) The Toronto Star (Canada) reports on the unpredictability and arduousness of commuting for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank because of Israeli restrictions (7.) The Telegraph (UK) examines how planned Israeli construction in the Har Homa settlement threatens upcoming Mideast peace talks (9.) A Jordan Times (Jordan) opinion by Gwynne Dyer fleshes out Israeli PM Olmert's statements on the choices available to Israel being either a Palestinian state or an apartheid-like situation (11.) In Haaretz (Israel) Bradley Burston urges a new Israeli policy to encourage the elements within the Hamas movement moving towards accommodation with Israel (12.) Also in Haaretz, an editorial is critical of the Har Homa settlement expansion and warns of its many damaging ramifications (14.)

Annapolis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al Hayat
by Cyril Townsend - (Opinion) December 11, 2007 - 1:56pm

To my alarm, and possibly for the first and only time, I found myself agreeing with a comment by John Bolton, President George Bush's former and totally miscast Ambassador to the United Nations.  Speaking of the Annapolis summit, which collected together the representatives of 44 countries in Maryland, he said:- "Normally, you have substantive actions and then you bring in the television cameras - they reversed that order."

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Time-wasting Manoeuvres
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
December 11, 2007 - 1:55pm

It has been reported that during the Annapolis conference, Israel offered the Palestinian side recognition of a Palestinian state with provisional borders and that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas quickly rejected the offer. It is not hard to guess why Abbas refused such an offer; its acceptance would be tantamount to consolidating Israel’s grip on Palestinian territories for an indefinite period of time and would put the border issue in deep freeze.

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Iran Is No Threat And That’s Official
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Linda Heard - December 11, 2007 - 1:52pm

“They stole our threat” goes a headline in the Israeli daily Haaretz. The author is, of course, referring to the recently published US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) composed by 16 American intelligence agencies. It counters US and Israeli assertions that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. There’s been no such program since 2003, it states.

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The 'four-phase' Approach
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Uri Savir - December 11, 2007 - 1:51pm

In May 1996, permanent status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership officially began. I represented Israel and my Palestinian counterpart was Mahmoud Abbas. The discussion of permanent status issues lasted only two hours. Instead, we opted to commence our negotiations by talking about the desired outcome of Israel's and the future Palestinian state's relations. We intended to give this focus several months' time and to postpone resolution of the final status issues to the last stage.

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