January 3rd, 2008

Voting Our Hopes, Voting Our Fears
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
(Editorial) January 3, 2008 - 5:10pm

Maybe it’s the weakness of the candidate field. Maybe it’s old habits dying hard, or unfamiliar threats flaring up. Whatever the cause, there seems to be a sharp increase in talk among Jews, some in the most unaccustomed circles, who plan to cast their votes this year on the basis of Israel’s security needs.

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Bush's Gordian Knot
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Middle East Times
by Claude Salhani - (Analysis) January 3, 2008 - 5:02pm

U.S. President George W. Bush is about to embark on a tour of several Middle Eastern countries starting next week as his presidency rounds the corner heading for the final stretch of its second and final term at the White House. The president will travel to Israel, the West Bank, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt over a period of eight days starting Jan. 8.

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January 2nd

In the Middle East Times, editor Claude Salhani examines the challenges facing President Bush as he attempts to bring about a resolution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict in the final year of his presidency (1.) In American Prospect, Israeli author and former editor Gershom Gorenberg uses the example of Israel's separation barrier in the occupied West Bank to illustrate that the solution to Israel's security issues is political rather than military (3.) In christian Century, senior contributing editor James Wall draws parallels with the Annapolis meeting and the Middle East in 1918 (5.) In Israel Policy Forum, Sadie Goldman details how an effective use of the funds pledged to the Palestinians at the Paris donor conference coupled with U.S. and Quartet engagement can lay the foundations of a future Palestinian state and address Israeli security needs (7.) Inter Press Service analyzes the implications of the fundraising partnership between the Jewish Agency and the Christian Zionist group the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (8.) A Daily Star (Lebanon) opinion by Rami Khouri takes issue with how Arab and Asian elites as well as U.S. presidential candidates are manipulating the issue of terrorism for political ends (10.) A Gulf News (UAE) opinion by editor-at -large Frances Matthew urges Arab leadership to address the three major Mideast trouble spots of Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon (11.) Haaretz (Israel) reports on the return of Palestinian Authority control over the West Bank city of Nablus (13.) Also in Haaretz, an editorial calls on President Bush to make a concerted push to bridge Israeli and Palestinian positions in the last year of his presidency (14.)

Words Won't Stop The Construction
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) January 2, 2008 - 2:44pm

The announcement that the prime minister has directed cabinet ministers not to build in the territories behind his back sounds like a sleight of hand. The prime minister should not instruct his ministers to "increase awareness" of their ministries' actions that might impair negotiations with the Palestinians, but rather he should once and for all bring the Sasson report to the cabinet for approval. The report states clearly how to monitor settlement expansion.

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Here's To The '67 Borders, The New Middle Of The Road
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Bradley Burston - January 2, 2008 - 2:42pm

There was a time, not long past, that the mere mention of the 1967 borders was seen by many in the Jewish community as an expression of disloyalty, of sacrilege, of foolhardy risk, almost of profanity. Gradually, remarkably, there are signs that the route of the middle of the road has shifted. That we've come a long, long way. At this point, for many on the Israeli side and, in fact, on the Palestinian side as well, the middle of the road passes very, very close to the Green Line, the post-1948 war, pre-1967 war boundary between the West Bank and Israel.

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Olmert Says Israel Must Internalize Divided J'lem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Herb Keinon And David Horovitz - January 2, 2008 - 2:40pm

Israel needs to internalize that even its supportive friends on the international stage conceive of the country's future on the basis of the 1967 borders and with Jerusalem divided, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has declared to The Jerusalem Post. At the same time, he made clear that he did not envisage a permanent accord along the '67 lines, describing Ma'aleh Adumim as an "indivisible" part of Jerusalem and Israel.

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Settlements Contradict The Essence Of Peacemaking
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) January 2, 2008 - 2:36pm

The policy of establishing and expanding settlements may well be the only constant in Israeli practices on occupied Palestinian territory since 1967. Yet it is possible to discern several distinct phases in this policy depending on the party in power in Israel.

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Cautious Hope For Peaceful Middle East
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Asia Times
by Kaveh Afrasiabi - January 2, 2008 - 2:34pm

Unlike 2007, a rather bloody year in the history of modern Middle East, 2008 should have a better prospect for peace than at any time since 2001, year zero in the American-declared "global war on terror", assuming that the lame-duck George W Bush administration does not somehow stifle that prospect.

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Gaza Sewage, Water Disaster Looms
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Middle East Times
by Mel Frykberg - January 2, 2008 - 2:31pm

More than 1.4 million Gaza Palestinians are facing an impending health disaster from decaying sewage and water systems that lack vital spare parts, fuel, and maintenance work, due to an Israeli economic siege on the Gaza Strip. "We are a one-generator-failure away from disaster," Michael Bailey, an Oxfam spokesman, told the Middle East Times.

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Israeli Arabs Split Over National Service Plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Ken Ellingwood - January 2, 2008 - 2:29pm

Seated in the corner of a bustling classroom, school volunteer Hanan Masarwa is barely visible amid a scrum of first-graders. The 18-year-old Masarwa is teaching the children to add as part of an Israeli national service program created in August. The volunteer program is an attempt to provide avenues, other than mandatory military service from which they are exempt, for integrating Arabs and religious Jews more fully into the mainstream Jewish state.

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