December 4th

Policy Surge Key To Mideast Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Boston Globe
by H.d.s. Greenway - (Opinion) December 4, 2007 - 2:06pm

IT OFTEN takes electric shock treatment to get the Middle East off its dead center of inertia. The lightning success of the first Gulf war in 1991 produced just that, unsettling all the old presumptions.

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Palestinians Expand Security Drive With New Forces
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Muin Shadid - December 4, 2007 - 2:04pm

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's government stepped up a Western-backed crackdown on gunmen on Tuesday by deploying hundreds of security officers in the West Bank city of Tulkarm. Tulkarm is the second West Bank city to welcome the new Palestinian force. The security drive, which comes as Palestinians start talks with Israel about statehood, started last month when hundreds of officers were deployed in Nablus.

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The Lobby Strikes Back
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The American Conservative
by Scott Mcconnell - December 4, 2007 - 2:02pm

One prism through which to gauge the impact of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy is a September incident involving Barack Obama. His campaign had placed small ads in various spots around the Internet, designed to drive readers to its website. One turned up on Amazon’s page for the Walt and Mearsheimer book. A vigilant watchdog at the New York Sun spotted it and contacted the campaign: Did Obama support Walt and Mearsheimer?

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December 3rd

Reuters reports on the expanding Palestinian security crackdown in the West Bank (2.) Inter Press Service examines the recent remarks by Israeli PM Olmert linking Israel's future existence with the need for a Palestinian state, in the context of preparing the Israeli public for withdrawing from the occupied Palestinian territories (4.) The Associated Press looks at Israel's refusal to include occupied East Jerusalem in its partial settlement freeze as evidenced by the announcement of new settlement construction there (5.) Der Speigel (Germany) analyzes how converting the current opportunity for Israeli-Palestinian peace may depend as much on the neighboring countries as it does on the protagonists themselves (8.) BBC (UK) Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen senses an opportunity for a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian settlement in 2008 despite the many obstacles to achieving one (9.) A Haaretz (Israel) editorial comes out in support of voluntary settler evacuation through the 'compensation for evacuation' Knesset bill (11.) A Jerusalem Post (Israel) opinion by Gershon Baskin examines the likely repercussions of a failure of the post-Annapolis process (12.) An Arab News (Saudi Arabia) opinion by John Whitbeck urges the Palestinians to capitalize on Israeli PM Olmert's statements regarding the necessity of a two-state solution to Israel's survival by attaching a deadline to pursuit of such a solution (14.)

Talk Less, Do More
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Michal Radoshitzky - (Opinion) December 3, 2007 - 4:25pm

“The international circumstances that were created, specifically at this time, allow you and us to take a courageous step, which involves the need to make painful compromises and forgo those dreams which were part of our national ethos for so many years, and to open a new chapter offering hope for a better life for all of us.” (Prime Minster Ehud Olmert, speaking at the official memorial ceremony for David Ben-Gurion, November 27, 2006.)

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Lieberman's Cigar Test
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - December 3, 2007 - 4:24pm

While MKs from all the parties crowded into the Knesset cafeteria to watch the television broadcasts from Annapolis, Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman pushed aside the sign that bans smoking in the sitting room at the end of the main auditorium. It was clear he did not care a bit about the controversy over the joint declaration's content. Nor did the decision to begin accelerated talks about a final-status agreement arouse much excitement in right-wing circles, inside and outside the coalition.

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The Thing About Annapolis ...
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Osama Al Sharif - (Special Report) December 3, 2007 - 4:23pm

Sixteen years is a long time in politics. But that is the gap that now separates the Madrid Middle East peace conference, called for by President George Bush Sr and the Annapolis meeting, which convened last week under the patronage of his son. To underline the size of the gap between the two events one is reminded that all the key players have changed; passed on or retired. The world has evolved dramatically and the core issue of the conflict in the Middle East has become even more complicated.

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Israel Errs In Trying To Impose Its Jewish Identity
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Shulamit Aloni - (Opinion) December 3, 2007 - 4:21pm

Jews are a people but not a nation; they are a religious ethnic group or as respected a tribe as may be. The Jewish citizens of Britain, including the orthodox, are British, and that is what is written in their passports and in the British population registry.

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Peace Summit: 'if These Talks Fail, We Will All Be In Deep Trouble'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald Macintyre - December 3, 2007 - 4:20pm

Wael Mansour watched the Annapolis conference on al-Arabiya television last week in the barely furnished three-room Gaza home he shares with his wife, mother and five children. Did he think the proceedings – intended to clinch the start of a year of peace negotiations – will do any good? "Inshallah [God willing]," said Mr Mansour, 32. "I hope to get out of what we are in. We are in deep trouble."

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Big Turnout, Small Result
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
December 3, 2007 - 4:18pm

THEY almost didn't make it, but in the last hour Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, agreed on a joint statement. Four months of preliminary talks had failed to produce what Mr Abbas and Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, had hoped to brandish at this week's peace summit in Annapolis: an agreement to predetermine some aspects of the final-status deal that would ultimately create a Palestinian state next to Israel. In the end, Ms Rice had to settle for less, but the Palestinians and Israelis did agree two things.

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