November 26th, 2007

Annapolis Is Just The First Step
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Aaron David Miller - November 26, 2007 - 12:53pm

If Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice want to set the Annapolis conference to music, I have a suggestion: the chorus from Sugarland's latest country music hit: "Everybody's dreamin' big, but everybody's just gettin' by."

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Obstacles And Opportunity For Mideast Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Boston Globe
by James Carroll - (Opinion) November 26, 2007 - 12:51pm

Obstacles abound. When representatives of more than 40 nations convene in Annapolis tomorrow, hoping to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, there will be many reasons for pessimism. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas presides over a fractured people, with Hamas ready to spoil any agreement. Qassam rockets fired from Gaza remind Israelis what a hostile Palestinian state could do from the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is politically vulnerable to extremist figures on the Israeli side who want no concessions.

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The Middle East's Middle Ground
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
(Editorial) November 26, 2007 - 12:49pm

An air of necessity, and thus possibility, lies over the Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Md. If Ben Franklin were there, as he was in Philadelphia to help 13 states draft a US Constitution, he might give the same advice to participants: We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.

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Bush, Olmert Said Hopeful On Mideast
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Mohammed Daraghmeh, Amy Teibel - November 26, 2007 - 12:45pm

Hours before the opening of a high-stakes international conference on the Middle East, President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed hope Monday that peace finally could be achieved. A senior member of the Palestinian delegation said an elusive joint statement on the contours for future talks was within reach.

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Messiah On A Hill
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Newsweek
by Kevin Peraino - November 26, 2007 - 12:44pm

By car they're only 15 minutes apart, but you can't get much further from the West Bank's desperate refugee camps than the summit of Mount Gerizim, on the outskirts of Nablus. The Palladian-style mansion perched there—the home of Palestinian billionaire Munib al-Masri—houses a staircase imported from Sicily, a Gothic fireplace from Versailles and a glassed-in winter garden that al-Masri says was a gift from Napoleon to Josephine. "This is a Picasso, but it looks like a Goya," the billionaire says with a casual wave. He is unapologetic about the excess.

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Appointment In Annapolis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
(Editorial) November 26, 2007 - 12:42pm

SECRETARY OF State Condoleezza Rice chose to plunge into Mideast peacemaking earlier this year because, she said, she saw an opportunity in the rise of a moderate Palestinian government in the West Bank and a common interest of Israel and many Arab states in checking Iranian-backed extremism in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Yet exploiting that opening is proving excruciatingly difficult. The Bush administration is expecting some 40 countries to attend a meeting Tuesday in Annapolis that is meant to kick off intensive negotiations on a final Israeli-Palestinian settlement.

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For Bush, It's Not About Being There
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Michael Abramowitz - November 26, 2007 - 12:40pm

The opening of Tuesday's Middle East conference in Annapolis, seven years into the Bush administration, is a reminder of how little the traditional concept of brokering an Arab-Israeli settlement through an ongoing "peace process" has figured into President Bush's foreign policy. Another is Bush's near-absence from the Middle East during his presidency. He has traveled to the region four times, but two of those visits were one-day trips to Iraq, and one was for a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

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Bush’s Best Hope
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Roger Cohen - (Opinion) November 26, 2007 - 12:38pm

The Palestinians are the cause of exiting and ex-presidents. There’s no electoral payback in supporting them. Jews and Israel-loving evangelicals dwarf any Arab lobby to the extent it’s not even funny. President Bush is on the exit track. It’s time to rectify the fundamental error he made in allowing war-on-terror rhetoric to discredit the Palestinian national movement.

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Rice’s Turnabout On Mideast Talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Elisabeth Bumiller - November 26, 2007 - 12:37pm

At President Bush’s first National Security Council meeting in January 2001, he announced that he did not want to be drawn into the shattered Middle East peace process, people at the meeting recalled, because he believed that former President Bill Clinton had pushed so hard for an Israeli-Palestinian accord that he made the situation worse.

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November 25th

The New York Times analyzes how resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict became a top priority for Secretary of State Rice (1.) Also in the Times, an opinion by Roger Cohen urges the Bush administration and Israel to heed the vision of Palestinian PM Fayyad for coexistence and peace with Israel (2.) A Washington Post editorial examines the political realities that make success at Annapolis a remote proposition (4.) The Associated Press outlines the role of President Bush in this week's Annapolis meeting (6), while the Independent (UK) stresses the importance of the president throwing his full weight behind the meeting (13.) A Christian Science Monitor editorial looks at how the Annapolis meeting represents a chance for moderate forces in the Middle East to address rising forces of extremism and radicalism in the region (7.) A Los Angeles Times opinion by former Mideast negotiator Aaron Miller identifies what is needed to turn Annapolis into an event that sets into motion a serious Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking process culminating in Palestinian statehood (9.) A Financial Times (UK) editorial lays out 3 elements to making the Annapolis meeting a success (11.) The Times (UK) looks at how Hamas rule in Gaza is causing increasing Palestinian anger as the movement becomes more isolated (14.) A Daily Star (Lebanon) editorial commends the Bush administration for having reached the conclusion that it is worth taking the risks of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking (16.) A Haaretz (Israel) opinion by Akiva Eldar identifies the importance of the American role at and post Annapolis as that of bridging the two sides, establishing a timeline for completing negotiations and establishing an implementation mechanism (17.)

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