NEWS: The PA and PM Fayyad face a backlash over tax hikes. Fatah officials say Palestinian leaders may agree on a new government by Thursday. UNSG Ban is on a peace mission to the Middle East. PM Netanyahu is reelected Likud chief. Religious extremists deploying harsh rhetoric are coming to the forefront of both Israeli and Palestinian discourse. Palestinians clash with Israeli forces in occupied East Jerusalem. Hackers target Palestinian news websites. Released Palestinian prisoners are adapting to life in Qatar. Growing lawlessness in Sinai may threaten the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. COMMENTARY:Ha'aretz says Netanyahu's new committee on settlements would not be necessary if the government followed the law. Douglas Bloomfield says Hamas is running away from Syria like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Josh Nathan-Kazis says concerns about Israel have replaced racial anxieties as the main obstacles Pres. Obama must overcome with Jewish voters. Rami Khouri says he's not impressed with the apparent rapprochement between Hamas and Jordan and thinks it should be put to a referendum. Osama Al Sharif says it's not clear how much Hamas really being brought out of the cold, but distancing it from Tehran has to be a good thing. Efraim Inbar says the Amman talks are another exercise in total futility. Elliott Abrams says designating 70 settlements as “national priority” areas is a foolish move by Israel but is actually Washington's fault. John Whitbeck says Israel is using carefully crafted language to assert ownership of East Jerusalem and other occupied areas. APN interviews Yossi Alpher on the Amman negotiations. Robert Staloff urges American politicians to stop speaking in terms of “ironclad commitments” to Israel.

Words matter: A new language for peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Jazeera English
by John V. Whitbeck - (Opinion) February 1, 2012 - 1:00am

The words which people use, often unconsciously, can have a critical impact upon the thoughts and attitudes of those who speak and write, as well as those who listen and read. Dangerously misleading terminology remains a major obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace.

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Israeli Settlements: Errors Beget Errors
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Weekly Standard
by Elliott Abrams - (Opinion) February 1, 2012 - 1:00am

On January 29, Israel’s cabinet approved new “housing benefits” for “national priority areas.” The exact application of these benefits to communities in the West Bank is unclear, to me at least, but the cabinet statement says, “The decision is designed to encourage positive migration to the communities.” News reports suggest that of the 557 communities eligible for the aid, 70 are in the West Bank: “The list of qualifying settlements include major enclaves that would likely remain in Israeli hands under a peace deal.

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The Monitor, Merrimac, and Middle East
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy
by Robert Satloff - (Opinion) January 31, 2012 - 1:00am

"Our ironclad commitment -- and I mean ironclad -- to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history."

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Another exercise in futile diplomacy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Efraim Inbar - (Opinion) January 30, 2012 - 1:00am

Few should be surprised by the failure of the Amman talks, which constituted an additional attempt by the international Quartet to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. These meetings were intended to break the impasse in the peace process, after the Palestinians decided to relinquish the option of negotiations with Israel and to adopt instead a unilateral approach to attain their goals.

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Hard Questions, Tough Answer with Yossi Alpher – January 30, 2012
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Americans For Peace Now
(Interview) January 30, 2012 - 1:00am

Alpher discusses the Israeli-Palestinian pre-negotiation talks in Amman, interim conclusions from the "Arab spring" one year after the outbreak of the revolution in Egypt and the meaning of the 2009 survey just published on Israeli attitudes towards religiosity. Q. The Israeli-Palestinian pre-negotiation talks in Amman adjourned after a meeting last Thursday without agreement to continue. What have we learned?

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Deep in the Sinai, a looming Crisis Threatens Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Bradley Hope - February 1, 2012 - 1:00am

CAIRO // The owner of a Sinai Peninsula holiday resort taken over by a group of armed Bedouin is refusing to pay the four million Egyptian pound (Dh2.4m) ransom the tribesmen are demanding. Hesham Nessim, proprietor of the Aqua-Sun Resort 30km south of Egypt's border with Israel, says he will wait them out or retake his property with police help. His brother Fouad says the Bedouin should expect a long stand-off. "It would be easier to go to the moon than to get that money from my brother," he told The National.

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Bringing Hamas in from the cold
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Osama Al-Sharif - (Opinion) January 31, 2012 - 1:00am

Most of Hamas senior officials, including Meshaal, are Jordanian citizens. Prime Minister Awn Al-Khasawneh has described their deportation to Qatar 12 years ago as “a constitutional” error. And since the former international jurist took over as premier he has been keen on mending state relations with the country’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leadership. Jordan’s recent rapprochement with Hamas, a powerful Palestinian faction currently ruling Gaza Strip but with special links to Jordan’s MB, ends more than a decade of cool and sometimes troubled relationship between the two.

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Put Hamas-Jordan amity to a referendum
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) February 1, 2012 - 1:00am

Why am I not impressed by the statement by Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal after meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Amman Sunday. Meshaal declared, “We are happy with this good new start ... With this new chapter in relations with Jordan. We hope Jordanian and Palestinian interests will be served.”

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Freed Palestinian Prisoners Adapt to Qatar Exile
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Michael Buchanan - February 1, 2012 - 1:00am

As part of the deal to free the captured Israeli soldier Sgt Gilad Shalit last year, more than a 1,000 Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli jails. The vast majority were allowed back into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but 40 prisoners were forced to leave the region entirely, deemed by Israel to be a continuing security threat. The releases were enormously controversial in Israel, where some of the prisoners were seen as mass murderers. A two-bed flat not far from the cornice in Qatar's capital, Doha, is now home for 47-year-old Ibrahim Shammasina from Ramallah.

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