August 16th

Abbas consults with US on resuming talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 16, 2010 - 12:00am

President Mahmoud Abbas will continue consulting with the US administration over resuming direct talks with Israel, a presidential spokesman said after the leader met with US official David Hale in Ramallah on Sunday. Nabil Abu Rudaineh said some progress has been made, but the Palestinian Authority would only announce its stance on direct talks when the Quartet releases its expected statement Monday.

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Direct Mideast talks set to resume
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Paul Richter - August 16, 2010 - 12:00am

After months of quiet U.S. diplomacy, Israeli and Palestinian leaders appear poised to announce a resumption of direct peace talks, perhaps as early as this week. Nearly two years after the last round of talks broke off, U.S. and allied officials in recent days cleared the final hurdle by persuading Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to take a seat at the negotiating table, officials say.

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Gaza doctor writes book of hope despite death of three daughters
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - August 15, 2010 - 12:00am

On a cool but sunny December day in Gaza, Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish took his eight children to the beach for the simple pleasures of paddling in the Mediterranean and playing in the sand. Two months earlier, the children's mother had died from acute leukaemia, and Abuelaish was comforted to see his older daughters laughing and chatting as they wrote their names in the damp grains close to the water's edge: Bessan, Maya, Aya. "It was as close to heaven and as far from hell as I could get that day," he later wrote.

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Mavi Marmara inquiry: Denying the obvious
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Gwynne Dyer - August 15, 2010 - 12:00am

The pro-Palestinian activists who said that the flotilla of ships that tried to breach the Israeli blockade and bring aid to the Gaza Strip had purely humanitarian goals were lying, and so are the Israeli officials who blandly insist that the blockade is solely to stop offensive weapons from reaching the Hamas-ruled enclave. But only the Israeli commandos who seized the ships and killed nine people had guns.

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In Jerusalem, a Barrier Comes Down
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - August 15, 2010 - 12:00am

The Israeli military on Sunday began dismantling a concrete barrier that protected residents of a once-troubled district on the edge of Jerusalem from Palestinian sniper fire. At the height of the second intifada, the violent Palestinian uprising that broke out in 2000, the barrier’s tall concrete blocks had shielded the residents of Gilo, most of whom are Jews, from gunmen who took over homes and rooftops in a West Bank village across a ravine.

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What Hamas is really afraid of
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - August 16, 2010 - 12:00am

"I wish these pictures reached leftists abroad," my friend said to herself Tuesday as she watched Hamas police use rifle butts and clubs to beat her friends - activists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Although my friend has never been a fan of the Fatah government in the West Bank, she is outraged by the romanticization of Hamas rule by foreign activists.

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Fighting for a culture of enlightenment in Palestine and beyond
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post
by Ziad Asali - August 13, 2010 - 12:00am

Last week signaled the rolling launch of an effort to fundamentally reform the Palestinian education sector. This reform effort is taking place in the context of a wider effort initiated one year ago by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to build the institutions of future Palestinian statehood.

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August 13th

Jackson Diehl questions Pres. Abbas' commitment to peace. Settlers fret over what will happen during talks and after the moratorium expires in September. The EU says major powers are working on establishing direct talks, which may begin next week. The PA and Israeli economy ministers meet but Palestinians are adamant about continuing the settlement goods boycott, which they say is working. The PA issues a one-year-on report saying that state and institution building are proceeding in spite of the occupation. Aaron David Miller says direct talks are no panacea. Shlomo Avineri says both Jews and Palestinians are national groups with a right to self-determination. Israel is dismantling a Jerusalem barrier constructed during the second intifada. PM Netanyahu may propose Israeli withdrawal from 90% of the West Bank. Shira Herzog and Leonard Fein both say only two states can bring peace. George Hishmeh dismisses claims that Arabs don't care much about the Palestinian issue.

IDF to dismantle Jerusalem barrier erected during intifada
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
August 13, 2010 - 12:00am

On Sunday, the Israeli army will begin dismantling a concrete barrier installed eight years ago, during the second intifada, to shield Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood from arms fire from the neighboring West Bank Arab town of Beit Jala. The wall was installed along the eastern edge of Gilo, the area at which the shooting was directed. The worst incident in the vicinity at the time saw a border policeman critically injured after being shot in the head.

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PA minister calls boycott of settlement products a success, vows to continue
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Ora Coren, Barak Ravid - August 13, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian Authority Economy Minister Hassan Abu Libda met with Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer in Tel Aviv yesterday, but said afterward that Palestinians would continue to boycott settlement goods despite Israel's requests that it stop. The two also discussed a new Palestinian law, expected to take effect at the beginning of 2012, which would ban Palestinians from working in the settlements. In addition, Abu Libda detailed the PA's request for observer status in the World Trade Organization and asked for Israel's cooperation on this matter.

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