November 30th

Why Annapolis Worked ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward (Editorial) November 30, 2007 - 4:54pm In the end, the Annapolis peace conference proved to be far less than the cataclysmic, watershed event that its sharpest critics had predicted. It unfolded, to everyone’s surprise, with very little upheaval. And for that reason, it might yet turn out to be far more than the pointless flop anticipated by the world-weary wise men. » Read more

Summit Surpasses Low Expectations ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times (Editorial) November 30, 2007 - 4:52pm It started out like an office party that no one wanted to attend. Everyone felt obliged to put in an appearance in Annapolis, even though the first Middle East confab in six years wasn't billed as a peace conference, a forum for negotiation or, really, much more than a photo-op. Yet once the leaders were all there, with the TV cameras pouring an intoxicating adrenaline cocktail, the pressure to be seen to do something about the seminal conflict of our time couldn't be ignored. » Read more

A Payoff For Syrians: Seats At The Table, At Least ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Helene Cooper - November 30, 2007 - 4:51pm For almost three years, Syria has been in the diplomatic doghouse, shunned by the United States, disrespected by France, bombed by Israel and even scolded by its fellow Arab governments for cozying up to Iran. But now, in the post-Annapolis let’s-make-peace-in-the-Middle-East world, the kitchen door may have cracked slightly open to allow Syria back in the house. » Read more

November 29th

Olmert To Haaretz: Two-state Solution, Or Israel Is Done For ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Aluf Benn, David Landau, Barak Ravid, Shmuel Rosner - November 29, 2007 - 5:11pm "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Haaretz Wednesday, the day the Annapolis conference ended in an agreement to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008. » Read more

Peace Talks Are Likely To Fail, Just As The 'road Map' Did ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) November 29, 2007 - 5:09pm The Annapolis conference on Tuesday was full of lofty rhetoric, intriguing new promises, a few bold commitments, and a tantalizing cast of characters - alongside plenty of rehashed rhetoric, rigid positions, and regurgitated, failed diplomatic mechanisms. It left us with as many questions as answers about whether this was a serious Arab-Israeli peace-making endeavor, or a hoax garnished with Chesapeake Bay clam cakes. » Read more

Time To Abandon Sectarianism ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) November 29, 2007 - 5:07pm The presence of a senior Syrian official at the Annapolis meeting that launched a new round of Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations has had a positive effect on the desperate search in Lebanon for a leader to assume the presidency after it was unceremoniously vacated last Friday. The attraction was not in the focus of the conclave but in at least one participant. » Read more

Robert Fisk: A Different Venue, But The Pious Claims And Promises Are The Same ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by Robert Fisk - (Opinion) November 29, 2007 - 5:07pm Haven't we been here before? Isn't Annapolis just a repeat of the White House lawn and the Oslo agreement, a series of pious claims and promises in which two weak men, Messrs Abbas and Olmert, even use the same words of Oslo. "It is time for the cycle of blood, violence and occupation to end," the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday. But don't I remember Yitzhak Rabin saying on the White House lawn that, "it is time for the cycle of blood... to end"? » Read more

Still Waiting For Peace ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian by Leader - (Special Report) November 29, 2007 - 5:03pm Serious negotiations do not normally take place at international conferences. They happen before or after them. If negotiations beforehand have been fruitful, a conference is a venue to publicise and formalise what has been agreed, or sometimes to settle one or two very difficult matters beyond the competence of the advance teams. On that test, Annapolis has not been a success. Palestinians and Israelis could not agree on a detailed joint document to put before the meeting. » Read more

Us Takes Ownership Of Peace Process ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times by Harvey Morris - November 29, 2007 - 5:02pm When George W. Bush this week read out the words of what historians will no doubt come to call the Annapolis Declaration, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders peered over his shoulder as if trying to read for the first time the terms of the contract they had just signed. Low down in the fine print was a clause that handed the US president ownership of the peace process as monitor and judge of their performance during the remaining year of his term. » Read more

Can Hope Triumph Over Mideast Experience? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from McClatchy News by Dion Nissenbaum, Warren P. Strobel - November 29, 2007 - 5:01pm The Wednesday morning newspapers trumpeting the latest fresh start toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians hadn't hit American doorsteps when the first crude Qassam rocket of the day soared out of the Gaza Strip and into southern Israel. Before lunch, Palestinian Authority police in the West Bank were using truncheons to break up angry mourners trying to bury a demonstrator who was killed a day earlier while protesting the new peace initiative. » Read more