Bush's Final Effort ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz (Editorial) January 3, 2008 - 5:46pm President George Bush will complete his second term in the White House in one year and two weeks, at his successor?s inauguration. Bush?s final year in office is already under the shadow in the battle over succession. Because of this, the U.S. media is expected to focus during his visit to the region next week on the first formal stages of the nominating process of the two main parties in Iowa and in New Hampshire, rather than on Bush?s meetings with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. » Read more

Pa Takes Back The Keys To A Key City ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Avi Issacharoff - January 3, 2008 - 5:45pm Four young women from the Nablus neighborhood of Rafidiyeh went into a shop yesterday near the clock square in the center of Nablus. Dressed in the trendiest jeans and blouses, they were looking for fashionable leather bags. Two minutes later they came out empty-handed, disappointed at not finding what they wanted. » Read more

Our Violent Presence ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Amira Hass - January 3, 2008 - 5:40pm There is no Israeli whose presence in the West Bank is neutral. Civilian or armed, soldier or woman settler, resident of a quality-of-life settlement or a nearby outpost, MahsomWatch activist or guest at a settlement, Bezek worker or client at a Palestinian garage. All of them, all of us, are in this Palestinian territory, in the West Bank, because our state occupied it in 1967. » Read more

Stand-offs Threaten Arab Region ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News by Francis Matthew - (Opinion) January 3, 2008 - 5:36pm The Middle East has never needed effective political leadership more than at present. Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq are three very troubled states which are in danger of seeing very little political progress in the coming year, and the effects of the continuing violence ripple out to all other nations in the region. All three share similar problems of poor state structures, lack of leadership and endemic violence, but each has very different local conditions which have created their bad situations. » Read more

The Rodeo Ride Of Manipulating Middle East Politics ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) January 3, 2008 - 5:34pm Four separate events in different parts of the world - Pakistan, Israel, the United States and wherever Osama Bin Laden makes his home these days - provided a gloomy but instructive start to the new year in the matter of Al-Qaeda-linked terrorism. The events were the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, a new audio tape by Osama bin Laden, Israel telling the world that Al-Qaeda is making inroads in Palestine, and US presidential candidates riding the terrorism horse like clowns at a rodeo. » Read more

The Beilin Syndrome ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News by Uri Avnery - January 3, 2008 - 5:32pm Mephisto, the demon who bought the soul of Faust in Goethe’s monumental drama, describes himself as “a part of that force which always wants the bad and always creates the good.” Yossi Beilin, who resigned this week as chairman of the Meretz Party, is Mephisto’s opposite: he always wants the good and all too often creates the bad. » Read more

Christian Zionists Gain Israel's Inner Sanctum ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS) by Bill Berkowitz - January 3, 2008 - 5:30pm After raising more than two hundred million dollars for various projects in Israel, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), the organisation he founded and is president of, has hit pay-dirt. » Read more

Down Payment On A State ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum by Sadie Goldman With Jason Proetorius And Ipf Staff - January 3, 2008 - 5:23pm Every Israeli-Palestinian negotiating process comes with a price tag. The current process, which was re-launched in Annapolis, Maryland, and continued at the Paris Donor’s conference, is no exception.  It was in Paris that donors examined Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s three-year reform plan and then pledged 7.4 billion dollars to help implement it. » Read more

Jewish Pols Backing Clinton, But Also Obama, Mccain ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) by Ben Harris - January 3, 2008 - 5:22pm As the nation trains its spotlight on New Hampshire, two Jewish politicians have become central players in the Granite State's political drama that may well determine who secures the Democratic and Republican nominations. » Read more

Peace Brokers ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Century by James M. Wall - (Opinion) January 3, 2008 - 5:19pm The local public library asked me to introduce and discuss the 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia. The screening happened to coincide with the day of the multinational Annapolis Conference on the Mideast, so I could not resist showing a segment from the final moments of the film. The parallel between Lawrence of Arabia, which ends in 1918 in Damascus, and the 2007 gathering of peacemakers at Annapolis, Maryland, is this: in both situations there is a deep imbalance of power and a pervasive distrust. » Read more