February 1st, 2008

Olmert Walks Friendless On Road From Annapolis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Philip Stephens - (Opinion) February 1, 2008 - 6:33pm

Before I visited Israel the other day, some of my friends in the foreign policy community had admonished me for being overly pessimistic about the new road map drawn at Annapolis for a Middle East peace.

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Olmert's Real Moment Of Truth Has Yet To Come
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald Macintyre - (Opinion) February 1, 2008 - 6:28pm

Talking with a few foreign journalists 10 days before Wednesday's Winograd report on the 2006 Lebanon war, a senior member of Israel's cabinet suggested that the report would not unseat Prime Minister Ehud Olmert but that his negotiations with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas might.

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Putting Humpty Together Again In Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Time
by Tim Mcgirk - February 1, 2008 - 6:27pm

Egypt's efforts to restore order on its breached border with Gaza suffered a setback Wednesday in Cairo, when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refused to talk to the leaders of Hamas. Needing a Palestinian partner to police the Rafah crossing, President Hosni Mubarak had invited his Palestinian counterpart to meet with leaders of the Islamist movement that has, since last summer, been the only effective authority in Gaza. But Abbas's refusal to acknowledge the facts on the ground created by Hamas's takeover of the territory left the Egyptians with no easy way forward.

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The Shifting Balance Of Power
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
February 1, 2008 - 6:27pm

ABSORBED by speculation about their government's future after an inquiry commission this week released its final report on the 2006 Lebanon war (see article), Israelis seemed briefly to forget about last week's dramatic breach of the Gaza-Egypt border by Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip. Yet in Gaza as in Lebanon, the short-sighted planning that the Winograd commission criticised was much in evidence.

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Defiant Hamas Bulldozes Rafah Crossing Wider
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Nidal Al-mughrabi - February 1, 2008 - 6:24pm

Hamas used a bulldozer to widen a breach in the Gaza-Egypt border on Friday so trucks could pass out of the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian territory despite Egypt's efforts to seal the crossing, witnesses said. An armed Hamas militant clung on to the outside of the yellow bulldozer's cab as the driver went about his work, and a number of other armed men close by provided additional cover.

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January 31st

Reuters reports on the latest news from the Rafah crossing (1.) The Economist examines the new power equation following Hamas’ breach of the border (2.) Time Magazine further analyzes the Gaza situation (3.) The Independent’s Donald Macintyre (4) and Financial Time’s Phillip Stevens (5) examine Olmert’s options. The Financial Times discusses how Israel’s coalition government rests on Labor’s upcoming decision (6.) The Time’s Chris Doyle argues continued occupation is the driving force behind continued Qassam rocket attacks and questions punishing the million for the sake of the few (7.) With U.S. elections impending, M.J. Rosenberg offers platform advice to candidates (10) as the Middle East Times ranks their support for Palestine (11.) Finally, Al-Ahram’s Serene Assir argues for permanent long-term cooperation between Egypt and Gaza(12).

For The Cause, The Settlements Must Go
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Sheldon Schreter - January 31, 2008 - 6:11pm

Israelis seem to have lost their belief in the rightness of our cause, as various observers have recently noted with alarm. Whether you attribute this to ideological fatigue, the universal tendency to pursue personal and material goals over collective ones, or loss in the belief of God's promise of this Land to Abraham, there is real cause for concern. Given Israel's challenges and the demands placed on its citizens, a national consensus on war and peace, relations with our Arab neighbors, and over societal priorities is no luxury, but a necessity.

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Worse Than The Partial Report
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) January 31, 2008 - 6:09pm

Because they were so preoccupied with the final 60 hours of the war, and because of the fact that the Winograd Committee exonerated Ehud Olmert from an implied accusation that he decided on a ground operation at the last moment only in order to improve his political position, people seem to have failed to hear the extraordinarily serious remarks read out by Judge Eliyahu Winograd in his summarizing announcement to the public. The blood libel against Olmert was removed from the agenda, but on the other hand, the committee declared him unfit to conduct a war.

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The Aftermath Of The Gaza Tsunami
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) January 31, 2008 - 6:08pm

It was very uplifting to see Palestinian men, women and children, hundreds of thousands of them, climb up the corrugated iron wall that separated their Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip from Egypt and watch them on Al Jazeera run freely to shop for much-needed supplies, visit with relatives and friends they have not seen for years, and play joyfully. The scenes of cows, camels and bicycles carried by cranes across the border will not be easily erased from anyone's fondest memories.

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Hamas Sets Rafah Border Conditions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al Jazeera English
January 31, 2008 - 6:07pm

A delegation led by Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas, has proposed joint Palestinian-Egyptian control of the Rafah crossing.    They set down these conditions on Thursday on the second day of talks in Cairo geared towards resolving the week-old crisis on the Gaza-Egypt border as Egypt continued its mediating role between Hamas and Fatah.  

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