March 5th

Palestinian Drag Queens At Odds With Nearly Everyone
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from McClatchy News
by Dion Nissenbaum - March 5, 2008 - 7:47pm

His friends call him "The Bride." This night, he was standing behind a storefront art-gallery window in a bloodied wedding dress. His face was ghostly, and he was clutching a large rock in his right hand. A small crowd had gathered on a south Tel Aviv street as The Bride opened his mouth and began to sing — in Arabic. To be more accurate, The Bride was lip-synching the words of a political anthem by one of Lebanon's best-known divas.

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Arab League Vows To Drop Out Of Npt If Israel Admits It Has Nuclear Weapons
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
March 5, 2008 - 7:46pm

Arab countries will walk away from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if Israel ever officially acknowledges it has nuclear weapons, the Arab League announced in a statement Wednesday. As Arab foreign ministers met at the Cairo headquarters of the Arab League to prepare for their annual summit at the end of the month, they also issued a series of statements on regional issues, including extremely sensitive matter of Israel's refusal to join the NPT.

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Gaza Clashes Cloud Rice's Trip
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Time
by Tim Mcgirk - March 5, 2008 - 7:46pm

In the southern Israeli port city of Ashkelon, the bull's-eye of Palestinian rocket attacks, pharmacists noted that the sale of tranquilizers shot up by more than 60% in the past week as residents sought to calm their shattered nerves. But with Ashkelon's 120,000 citizens now in the range of the Russian-made Grad rockets recently hauled out of Hamas' arsenals to escalate the confrontation, the drug of choice for Israeli leaders and U.S. officials trying to revive peace talks is more likely to be aspirin or any other pain reliever to help treat their frequent headaches.

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Rice: Israeli-palestinian Talks On Again
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Times
by Nicholas Kralev - March 5, 2008 - 7:45pm

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today, before departing Jerusalem at the end of a two-day trip, that Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to resume peace talks. “The parties have just informed me that they intend to resume negotiations and that they are in contact with one another as to how to bring this about,” Miss Rice told reporters at a joint press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Afterward, Miss Rice boarded a plane and headed back to Washington. She gave no indication when talks would resume.

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Vanity's Fair?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Glenn Kessler - (Blog) March 5, 2008 - 7:44pm

A well-timed Vanity Fair expose caused a flap on the first day of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to the Middle East. The article, "The Gaza Bombshell," by David Rose, cited confidential documents and interviews to allege that the Hamas takeover stemmed from a secret Bush administration plan to use Fatah security forces to confront Hamas. Hamas, the article said, caught wind of the plan and acted before Fatah could, seizing the Gaza Strip.

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Let's Help The Good Guys In The West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Walter Isaacson - (Opinion) March 5, 2008 - 7:43pm

The rocket attacks on Israel launched by Hamas militants in Gaza, coupled with Israel's retaliation, have disrupted peace talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. This is a great victory for the radicals in Hamas, who never wanted such talks. While visiting the region this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is trying to remind everyone that the real goal is to weaken Hamas.

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March 4th

In the Washington Post, an opinion by Walter Isaacson reemphasizes the need to strengthen the Fatah leadership in the West Bank (1) while a blog response by Glenn Kessler examines claims made in a recently published Vanity Fair article (2). The Media Line reports that Hamas has rejected an Arab-League proposal for truce with Israel (6). An interview with former ambassador Daniel C. Kurtzer in Middle East Progress sheds light on how the US can lead forward from gaza (10). An editorial in the Daily Star examines how effective US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice can be in making peace talks work (12).

The Cynicism Of Shas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) March 4, 2008 - 6:36pm

One might be able to understand the clearly political reasons that led Eli Yishai - Shas chairman and minister of industry, trade and labor - to call for a national unity government yesterday at the Shas faction meeting. After all, he has repeatedly threatened that his party would vote no-confidence in the government if it continued the peace talks with the Palestinians.

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Kosovo Raises Some Relevant Issues
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) March 4, 2008 - 6:35pm

If the current Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations fail--at the time of writing they have been suspended by the Palestinian side in protest at Israel's military response to rocket fire from Gaza--the Palestinian leaders in Ramallah ostensibly have a number of options. They can launch a third intifada in the West Bank. They can petition the international community to compel Israel to accept a single bi-national state solution. And they can declare independence.

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Seeking Alternatives
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) March 4, 2008 - 6:31pm

Most Palestinians, from the general public to officials, have already concluded that the current negotiations, initiated at the Annapolis conference, have very little or no chance of success. For that reason, several debates have been held and initiatives offered to find an alternative strategy for the Palestinian leadership to pursue.

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