September 21st

Settling for Failure in the Middle East
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Stephen Walt - (Opinion) September 20, 2009 - 12:00am

Like so many of his predecessors, President Obama is quickly discovering that persuading Israel to change course is nearly impossible.

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Can Hamas spoil Obama's three-way Mideast summit?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - September 20, 2009 - 12:00am

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh slammed the Obama administration's plan to meet Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, saying that Palestinians will reject anything Mr. Abbas agrees to during discussions on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. His comments come one day after militants in Gaza fired two rockets into Israel and as a flare up in violence along the Gaza border left two militants dead.

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Obama convenes talks to break Mideast impasse
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Harvey Morris - September 21, 2009 - 12:00am

Barack Obama, US president, will host a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York tomorrow, seeking to break the Middle East stalemate after a troubled week for US diplomacy in the region. A weekend statement from the White House that Mr Obama would chair a joint session with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, came after the failure of both sides to budge on the issue of Israeli settlement activity had threatened to scupper the encounter.

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Little hope of breakthrough at Mideast meet
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP)
by Yana Dlugy - September 21, 2009 - 12:00am

Israeli and Palestinian leaders headed on Monday for a summit with US President Barack Obama, with both sides sceptical the "photo-op" encounter will lead to a resumption of stalled peace talks. The US leader is to hold a three-way meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Tuesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. It will mark Netanyahu's first meeting with Abbas since the hawkish premier was sworn into office nearly six months ago.

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Why Israelis and Palestinians will meet
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico
by Laura Rozen - September 21, 2009 - 12:00am

A day after U.S. special envoy George Mitchell left Israel with no deal on a resumption of peace talks in the region, the White House announced Saturday that President Barack Obama will meet Tuesday in New York with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. That meeting will be immediately preceded by separate meetings between Obama and each leader, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.

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Obama to Meet With Mideast Leaders
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - September 20, 2009 - 12:00am

After a frustrating week of shuttle diplomacy here in which the Obama administration failed to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to renew peace talks, leaders of the two sides are heading to the United States to make their cases again that the administration should push the other harder.

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September 18th

Mideast Envoy George Mitchell extends his stay in the Middle East as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosts an Iftar at the State Department. The Washington Post examines human rights abuses arising from the divide between Fatah and Hamas. The US rejects a compulsory investigation into the Gaza war. The LA Times runs commentaries for and against the Goldstone Report. The head of a Gaza charity urges the PA to freeze its accounts after an alleged takeover by Hamas. Prime Minister Netanyahu is expected to face a difficult diplomatic atmosphere at upcoming meeting of the UN General Assembly and Palestinian sources are now saying that a three-way summit is "unlikely."

Let's try something else
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Ahram
by Samir Ghattas - September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

In three months time, we'll mark the anniversary of UN Resolution 181 of 1947, which provided for the partitioning of Palestine into two states, a Jewish one and an Arab one, with Jerusalem being an international zone.

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Peace and prosperity in Palestine
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Michael Mylrea - September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

US President Barack Obama’s commitment to Middle East peace has made little progress in the last eight months. As his Middle East envoy George Mitchell visits leaders in the region this week, Palestinian optimism has turned to resentment. Time is quickly running out. Unless there is immediate progress toward establishing a sovereign Palestinian state, there will be a deadly third intifada that could quickly escalate into a major regional conflict. To prevent this volatile situation from becoming a catastrophe, US policy makers need to make immediate steps toward a two-state solution.

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US envoy faces stalemate over settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Ori Lewis - September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

A burst of shuttle diplomacy by President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy today did not produce immediate results, with Palestinian and Israeli leaders still at odds over terms for resuming direct talks. An Israeli official said after envoy George Mitchell met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem that Israel might freeze settlements in the West Bank for longer than the six months it previously suggested, but not for as long as a year.

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