September 20th

Former Israeli premier details failed peace offer ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman by Matti Friedman - September 19, 2010 - 12:00am Israel's former premier gave his most detailed description yet of his 2008 peace offer to the Palestinians, saying in a lecture Sunday that if the current talks are to succeed, the agreement would have to resemble the plan the Palestinians turned down two years ago. The Palestinians deemed Ehud Olmert's offer insufficient at the time, but wanted the more hawkish premier who replaced him, Benjamin Netanyahu, to use it as a starting point for negotiations. Instead, Netanyahu has taken it off the table. » Read more

Israeli FM wants to exclude Palestinians ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency September 20, 2010 - 12:00am Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called for Israel's borders to be redrawn to exclude some Palestinian citizens, the Associated Press reported Sunday. Speaking ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting, Lieberman proposed a shift in the principle of peace talks, which he said "must not be land for peace, but an exchange of land and people," AP said. The border should be redrawn, Lieberman explained, so Israel's Arab citizens, who make up 20 percent of the country's population, would be on the Palestinian side, while Jewish settlements would be incorporated into Israel. » Read more

Israel to allow 20 cars into Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency September 20, 2010 - 12:00am Israel will permit the entry of private vehicles into Gaza on Monday for the first time since 2007, a Palestinian crossing official said. Raed Fattouh said 20 cars will enter the Strip, as well as oil, spare parts and rubber tires. Israel has slowly allowed the entry of car parts and oil for the first time in four years over the past week. » Read more

Hillary Clinton faces huge challenge in Mideast talks ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times by Paul Richter - September 20, 2010 - 12:00am Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders 11 times in three Middle Eastern cities last week, a diplomatic marathon that produced only promises that the adversaries remain committed to the latest U.S.-led peace initiative. Clinton couldn't extract the result she needs: that the two sides put aside their differences over Jewish construction in the occupied West Bank and move on. "All of this is complicated," Clinton acknowledged at the end of a disappointing week. » Read more

Mideast needs a peace of the brave ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News by Adel Safty - (Opinion) September 20, 2010 - 12:00am The late Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) used to refer to the peace process he and the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin started in the early 1990s as the "peace of the brave". This was more of a colourful description than an accurate rendition of reality. » Read more

Contesting Past and Present at Silwan ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Middle East Report by Joel Beinin - (Analysis) September 17, 2010 - 12:00am On September 1, Elad -- a Hebrew acronym for “To the City of David” -- convened its eleventh annual archaeological conference at the “City of David National Park” in the Wadi Hilwa neighborhood of Silwan. Silwan, home to about 45,000 people, is one of 28 Palestinian villages incorporated into East Jerusalem and annexed by Israel after the June 1967 war. It lies in a valley situated a short walk beyond the Dung Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City. » Read more

Our Man in Palestine ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Review Of Books by Nathan Thrall - (Analysis) September 16, 2010 - 12:00am On August 31, the night before President Obama’s dinner inaugurating direct talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Hamas gunmen shot and killed four Jewish settlers in Hebron, the West Bank’s largest and most populous governorate. The attack—the deadliest against Israeli citizens in more than two years—was condemned by Palestinian and Israeli officials, who said that it was meant to thwart the upcoming negotiations. » Read more

For Palestinians, settler abuse is only the beginning of the ordeal ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Avi Issacharoff - (Analysis) September 19, 2010 - 12:00am   Almost every few weeks (or days, depending on the season), the following ceremony repeats itself in Palestinian villages around Nablus: A group of Israeli settlers from one of the outposts in the West Bank hills attacks Palestinian farmers while they are grazing sheep or working the fields, hoping to throw them off Palestinian land. » Read more

In West Bank, corruption-busting teenagers shake up local government ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Christa Case Bryant - (Analysis) September 18, 2010 - 12:00am Ramallah, West Bank — Fatmeh Abu Afifeh doesn't look like someone who could intimidate tough bureaucrats. Demure and only 17, she had never even spent a night away from her family until now. But armed only with fine pearl pins that keep her head scarf firmly in place, Fatmeh is here in Ramallah with dozens of other students who exposed significant corruption across the West Bank. » Read more

September 17th

Hamas Isn't the IRA ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Slate by Michael Weiss - September 17, 2010 - 12:00am With the resumption of Arab-Israeli direct talks comes the regurgitation of a minority view that these talks are destined to fail because Hamas is excluded. The first salvo in this ongoing campaign came from Palestinian-American blogger Ali Abunimah, an advocate of the one-state solution, who expounded upon the need for recognizing Hamas in the New York Times. Peter Beinart made the same case in a broader Daily Beast column about Obama's failed foreign policy. » Read more