April 7th

Israeli Siege Bears Strange Fruit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Sunday Herald
by Alex Renton - April 7, 2008 - 5:45pm

FADEL DARDAR stares with weary gloom at the wreck of his orange grove. "They used to bring us $3000 a year - just the trees in this one field. Now they're worth nothing, less than nothing." It's early spring in Gaza, but most of the 100 or so trees have lost their leaves - and the few that remain are brown and brittle. Bizarrely, hundreds of ripe oranges still hang on the branches, but just as many of the fruit are rotting in the stinking, muddy ground.

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Israel's Tough Choice
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Nimrod Novik - (Opinion) April 7, 2008 - 5:42pm

For several decades now, Israeli policy toward the Palestinians has been all too frequently governed by false assumptions. These include the presumption to "produce" an alternative Palestinian leadership that is more amenable to Israeli preferences and an equally condescending claim to "reeducate" Palestinians to alternative thinking.

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After Bush
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum
by M.J. Rosenberg - (Opinion) April 7, 2008 - 5:40pm

It is fascinating, although not at all surprising, that the candidates for president almost never discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s not like it is some minor foreign policy issue. Ask Americans to name two or three of the most pressing foreign policy issues and they are bound to mention the Arab-Israeli conflict. How could they not? After Iraq, there is no other that is so extensively covered by the media nor is there another one of interest to as many voters.

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Olmert, Abbas To Meet Again After Seven Weeks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP)
April 7, 2008 - 5:38pm

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas meet on Monday for the first time in six weeks as Middle East peace talks get back on track under heavy US pressure. Abbas, who suspended his bi-weekly meetings with Olmert at the beginning of March after an Israeli military operation in Gaza killed more than 130 people, said on Sunday that he would not accept a peace deal at any price.

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Evangelist Hagee Pledges $6 Million To Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
April 7, 2008 - 5:35pm

American Evangelist John Hagee on Sunday announced donations of $6 million to a number of Israeli causes and declared that Israel must remain in control of all of Jerusalem. Hagee, who has been in the news lately for his endorsement of US Presidential candidate John McCain and his criticism of the Catholic Church, brought hundreds of backers on a solidarity trip to Israel.

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Road Map To A Gaza War
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Jackson Diehl - (Opinion) April 7, 2008 - 5:32pm

Seven years ago George W. Bush's incoming foreign policy team blamed the Clinton administration for an eleventh-hour rush for a Middle East peace agreement that ended with the explosion of the second Palestinian intifada. Now, with less than 10 months remaining in office, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are engaged in a similar last-minute push -- yet they don't seem to recognize the growing risk that their initiative, too, will end with another Israeli-Palestinian war.

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April 6th

In the Washington Post, Jackson Diehl discusses the potential or Israeli action in Gaza (1).The Agence France Presse reports on the meeting of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (4). A MJ Rosenberg opinion in the Israel Policy Forum examines what the Israeli-Arab debate will look like after current US President George W. Bush leaves office (5). In BitterLemons, Nimrod Novik suggests relaxing restrictions on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and letting him negotiate with Hamas (6). Lawrence Pintak warns readers to ignore Al-Jazeera at their own peril in The Daily Star (8).

April 4th

With Friends Like These
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) April 4, 2008 - 6:30pm

The president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, has called for non-cooperation with the Christian Zionists, a movement of millions of Americans who ardently support Israel. Yoffie represents a movement that supports Israel for very different reasons from those of the Christian Zionists, who identify largely with the most right-wing sectors of Israeli society. His call on Wednesday reawakens the controversy over Israel's practical approach toward its supporters in the United States.

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The Lie Of Peace And The Nonsense Of Security
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) April 4, 2008 - 6:29pm

Presumably there is a strange but legitimate dispute between a leader who comes from the right, who believes that if Israel continues to hold on to the territories the Jewish state will be in danger, and a leader who comes from the left, who claims that if Israel stops holding on to the territories Jewish lives will be in danger. Ostensibly one proposes a reaching a quick solution to the conflict by negotiating with Fatah, and the other prefers long-term resolution via a military struggle with Hamas.

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'marching Toward Total Ruin'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Avi Issacharoff - (Interview) April 4, 2008 - 6:28pm

"When you see Zakariya, maybe you'll be surprised, but he looks like just any other Palestinian man now. Without armed men, without a weapon, just an ordinary guy," related an acquaintance of Zakariya Zubeidi, until not long ago the commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Jenin.

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