August 24th

End of settlement freeze could derail Mideast talks ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Times by Eli Lake - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians that are set to begin next week in Washington may be scuttled before they even get going. Israel has yet to commit to extending a freeze on construction of settlements that the Palestinian side says it needs to continue negotiations. That settlement freeze is set to expire Sept. 26. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stated in a letter to President Obama that he would not participate in the direct talks if Israel continued construction in the West Bank and Jerusalem. » Read more

Talks ‘Doable,’ Says Palestinian Official ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Isabel Kershner - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am The chief Palestinian negotiator said Monday that he believed reaching an agreement with Israel within a year was “doable,” echoing remarks by the Israeli prime minister a day earlier that a peace agreement would be difficult but “possible.” But the otherwise sharply differing declarations presented as the basis for going into the direct talks, scheduled to start in Washington on Sept. 2, reflect the complexity of the effort required to get the two sides to this point, and the daunting challenges that lie ahead. » Read more

August 23rd

One Solution: Two States ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Lara Friedman - August 18, 2010 - 12:00am The steady march of settlements, the rightward shift in Israeli politics, the growing sense that a conflict-ending peace agreement is impossible — all these things are feeding some pundits’ impulse to declare the death of the two-state solution as a means of ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But what are the alternatives? » Read more

Palestinians: No talks if settlement freeze ends ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press by Mohammed Daraghmeh - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am The Palestinian leader has warned President Barack Obama that he will pull out of upcoming peace talks if Israel ends a slowdown of West Bank settlement construction, a Palestinian negotiator said Monday. Direct negotiations aimed at ending the decades-old Mideast conflict are to resume in Washington next week after months of U.S. diplomatic efforts. Both sides seem pessimistic about the talks, their first in 20 months. » Read more

Support builds for boycotts against Israel, activists say ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Boston Globe by Farah Stockman - August 22, 2010 - 12:00am In May, rock legend Elvis Costello canceled his gig in Israel. Then, in June, a group of unionized dock workers in San Francisco refused to unload an Israeli ship. In August, a food co-op in Washington state removed Israeli products from its shelves. The so-called “boycott, divestment, and sanctions’’ movement aimed at pressuring Israel to withdraw from land claimed by Palestinians has long been considered a fringe effort inside the United States, with no hope of garnering mainstream support enjoyed by the anti-apartheid campaign against South Africa of the 1980s. » Read more

Israel's Netanyahu scores big victory with direct peace talks – for now ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Joshua Mitnick - August 22, 2010 - 12:00am Savoring the diplomatic victory of renewed direct peace talks announced last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet today that a peace treaty with the Palestinians would be "a difficult thing, but it is possible." » Read more

Palestinians see danger for Abbas in resumed Israel peace talks ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Ben Lynfield - August 20, 2010 - 12:00am There was little for Palestinians to be upbeat about Friday as they waited for an official invitation to join Israel at resumed direct peace talks to be hosted by President Obama on Sept. 2. » Read more

Counterpoint: Land and Sovereignty ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Charles Glass - August 20, 2010 - 12:00am In the elegant and incisive style that characterizes all of his writing, James Carroll set out in these pages (“The wandering Jew and the mad Saracen,” Views, Aug. 12) the theological genesis of the dispute in Israel-Palestine. Mr. Carroll presented a compelling vision of Christian religious prejudice against both Jews and Muslims that he believes informs this seemingly intractable conflict. Christian insistence from St. Augustine onward that “Jewish exile was a matter of theological proof,” he wrote, animates Christian hostility to Zionism. » Read more

Gaza Mall Seeks to Make Statement of Resolve ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Ethan Bronner - August 22, 2010 - 12:00am Colognes by Hugo Boss, Dunhill and Givenchy line the shelves of the cosmetics shop. One of the two women’s clothing stores features a window mannequin in a hot pink T-shirt and low-slung jeans. In the supermarket freezer is Nestlé ice cream and on its shelves are salty and cheesy chips and doodles that well-off societies consume by the bagful. Gaza, famous for its misery, has a shopping mall. It opened a month ago to considerable fanfare, with Palestinian television cameras trailing Hamas government officials meandering proudly around the bright new stores filled with imported goods. » Read more

Stakes are high in Mideast peace talks ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Boston Globe by Farah Stockman - August 21, 2010 - 12:00am The United States will host the launch of direct peace negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Washington early next month, a diplomatic breakthrough for the Obama administration, which has invested much of the president’s global political capital in an attempt to broker peace in the Middle East. » Read more