March 20th

Fatah official: Assassinations kill 2-state solution ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency March 20, 2012 - 12:00am GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- The head of Fatah in the Gaza Strip hit out at Israel's assassination policy on Monday, a week after factions in Gaza said a truce to halt recent violence would stop targeted killings by Israel. Abdullah Abu Samhadanah told reporters the killings had "assassinated the possibility of reaching a political compromise, leaving no room for the two-state solution." » Read more

Israel says improved crossing procedures for Palestinians ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency March 20, 2012 - 12:00am BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- The Israeli military department in charge of civil affairs in the Palestinian territories said on Tuesday it has made a number of improvements to Palestinians' quality of life, Israeli media reported. The Israeli Civil Administration told Voice of Israel radio it had improved procedures at a number of military checkpoints in the West Bank. A Palestinian official, speaking to Ma'an on condition of anonymity, said there was nothing new in the announced improvements. » Read more

Even Einstein couldn't think of a peace plan ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by Donald MacIntyre - (Opinion) March 20, 2012 - 12:00am Given that she had had a two-year affair with the married Albert Einstein when she was 23 and he was 44, and that she was a Jew desperate to escape an Austria overrun by the Nazis, what resounds down the years about the letter Betty Neumann sent to Einstein in America is its restraint and delicacy. Writing to the already world famous scientist in German two months after Hitler's tanks had rolled into Vienna, Miss Neumann, by now in her mid-thirties, formally addresses her former lover – now installed at Princeton University – as "Highly Esteemed Herr Professor". » Read more

Abbas to Obama: PLO ready for talks ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency March 20, 2012 - 12:00am RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- PLO official Saeb Erekat said Tuesday that President Mahmoud Abbas insisted Palestinians are ready to return to negotiations if Israel commits to Quartet requirements, in a conversation with US President Barack Obama. Obama called Abbas on Monday to assure him of the US commitment to Middle East peace, the White House said, in their first conversation since meeting in New York as the US vetoed Abbas' bid for Palestinian statehood at the UN six months ago. » Read more

Not only violence has failed ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) March 19, 2012 - 12:00am In reviewing more than six decades of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a cost/benefit analysis of the two sides' reliance on violence produces a very mixed record. Whereas Israel has generally triumphed in its conventional wars against neighboring Arab states, success in fighting non-state actors--primarily the Palestinians but also Hizballah--has been much more difficult to achieve. The Palestinian record against Israel is no better. » Read more

Physicians of female Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike say her life is in danger ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press March 20, 2012 - 12:00am JERUSALEM — A Palestinian woman who has refused food for the past month to protest her imprisonment by Israel without formal charges is in grave danger of dying, a medical rights group said Tuesday. Hana Shalabi lost 14 kilograms (31 pounds), her muscles are wasting and she is in excruciating pain, said Ran Cohen of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, which has provided her a doctor. She has taken only water since her arrest on Feb. 16. » Read more

Learning the lessons ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) March 19, 2012 - 12:00am Violence has been always a prominent characteristic of how Israel handles its relationships in the neighborhood. The state was created through violence wielded against the indigenous Palestinian population, resulting in the exile of 800,000 Palestinian refugees to surrounding countries. Afterwards, the use of force became a doctrine in Israel, used to intimidate its neighbors and impress its friends. » Read more

This conflict has no military solution ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons by Ephraim Sneh - (Opinion) March 19, 2012 - 12:00am We are in a period of loss of confidence in the peace process, when the chances of reaching a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appear distant. Now, again, we hear Palestinian voices calling for a return to violent struggle. This seems like an appropriate time to review the history of violent clashes between the two sides--and their outcome. » Read more

U.S. War Game Sees Perils of Israeli Strike Against Iran ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Mark Mazzetti, Tom Shanker - March 19, 2012 - 12:00am WASHINGTON — A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials. The officials said the so-called war game was not designed as a rehearsal for American military action — and they emphasized that the exercise’s results were not the only possible outcome of a real-world conflict. » Read more

The West Bank Through Chinese Eyes ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Bernard Avishai - (Opinion) March 19, 2012 - 12:00am Three weeks ago—just while Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing for his Palestineless AIPAC speech—I accompanied a team of about thirty Chinese businesspeople on a visit to the West Bank, led by a former Duke colleague, Liu Kang, now also the dean of the Institute of Arts and Humanities Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University. It was kind of tour d’horizon for uninitiated but intrigued foreign investors—“some billionaires,” Kang assured me—shoe and leather manufacturers, toy exporters, equity-fund managers, people by now accustomed to seeing the world as their market, if not their oyster. » Read more