The No-return Point Of A Return To Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Amir Oren - (Opinion) May 19, 2008 - 5:56pm Colonel Nir Peres has one of the most frustrating jobs in the Middle East. He heads the Israel Defense Forces' Coordination and Liaison Administration at the Erez border crossing. Peres' efforts are aimed at preventing a large humanitarian disaster in Gaza, and he is trying to get the local population to blame Hamas for its distress. He must convince the IDF's top brass to show restraint and use force for immediate operational needs only, in order to maintain a chance of a calmer future within a generation or two. » Read more

Pelosi's Pro-israeli Dictionary ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Shmuel Rosner - (Blog) May 19, 2008 - 5:55pm The speaker of the House of Representatives, the most powerful woman in the United States, perhaps in the world, has no doubts. She waves her hand dismissively, and says she relies on everyone. That includes the members of her Democratic Party who are running for president, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and also the Republican Party candidate, John McCain. They will all support Israel and all the rest is a matter of election-year politics and not real U.S. policy. » Read more

Settlement Stumbling Bloc ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Lara Friedman And Hagit Ofran - (Opinion) May 19, 2008 - 5:55pm Last month, The Washington Post reported that the Bush administration had entered into a secret agreement with Israel to permit continued construction in areas of the West Bank popularly known as "settlement blocs." The story focused on the alleged agreement (the existence of which administration officials strongly deny), but missed the real point: Secret agreement or not, Israeli construction in and around "settlement blocs" has continued without pause throughout the tenure of President George W. Bush, and continues to this day, with only token opposition from the U.S. » Read more

Time To Free Barghouti ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Yehuda Litani - (Opinion) May 19, 2008 - 5:53pm Fatah and Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti has been in Israeli prison for more than six years now. Four years have passed since he was convicted of five counts of murder and an attempted murder and sentenced to five prison terms and another 40 years. » Read more

Barak To Mubarak: Gaza Terror Leading To Military Face-off ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Roni Sofer - May 19, 2008 - 5:51pm During his meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in a Sharm el-Sheikh hotel on Monday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak reiterated Israel's commitment to the peace process, stressing that the continued terror emanating from Gaza can only lead to a full-blown escalation and even a military confrontation. » Read more

Unknown Assailants Detonate Bomb Outside Gaza Cafe ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times May 19, 2008 - 5:50pm Assailants detonated a bomb outside a popular cafe in Gaza City early Sunday morning, apparently part of a campaign by shadowy extremists to eliminate perceived symbols of Western influence. The pre-dawn blast smashed the cafe's windows and damaged its door. No one was hurt. Cafe owner Khalid Harbid said another bomb went off outside his cafe last month. He charged that Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers are not protecting his business. » Read more

The Road Map Revisited ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Middle East Times by Naomi Chazan - (Opinion) May 19, 2008 - 5:50pm The "Performance-Based Road Map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" highlights both the good intentions and the misplaced conceptions of its promulgators. Five years after its adoption, it lingers not as a tool for the achievement of a sustainable agreement but as a burdensome impediment to its realization. » Read more

Obama And Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from International Herald Tribune by Thomas L. Friedman - (Opinion) May 19, 2008 - 5:49pm Pssst. Have you heard? I have. I heard that Barack Obama once said there has to be "an end" to the Israeli "occupation" of the West Bank "that began in 1967." Yikes! Pssst. Have you heard? I have. I heard that Barack Obama said that not only must Israel be secure, but that any peace agreement "must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people." Yikes! » Read more

Israel's 'american Problem' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from International Herald Tribune by Jeffrey Goldberg - (Opinion) May 19, 2008 - 5:48pm When the prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, arrived at a Jerusalem ballroom in February to address the grandees of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, he was pugnacious, as is customary, but he was also surprisingly defensive, and not because of his relentlessly compounding legal worries. » Read more

Bush Wraps Up Mideast Trip With A Thud, Analysts Say ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Usa Today by Charles Levinson - May 19, 2008 - 5:47pm President Bush wrapped up his five-day Mideast tour Sunday with little visible progress on either of the main issues he highlighted: rising oil prices and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Instead, Bush was subjected to a wave of criticism as he delivered a lecture to the Arab world on the benefits of democracy. "This trip was an exclamation point on the fact that the mystique about American power is no longer there," said Steve Clemons, an analyst at the New America Foundation, a think tank in Washington. » Read more