January 11th

Palestinian envoy to visit Washington to revive peace talks ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua January 11, 2011 - 1:00am Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat announced Tuesday that he will visit Washington to discuss reviving peace talks with U.S. officials. Erekat stressed that he will not meet the Israeli envoy who will also arrive in Washington this week. The bilateral discussions which involve Erekat and U.S. State Department officials will "look into how to get out of the current impasse which resulted from Israel's rejection to halt settlement construction," Erekat told Xinhua. » Read more

Strains emerge between Netanyahu, foreign minister ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press by Aron Heller - January 11, 2011 - 1:00am Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuked his combative foreign minister on Tuesday for attacking members of the Israeli leader's Likud party, pointing to growing strains within Israel's coalition government. In a rambling press conference, Avigdor Lieberman criticized Likud leaders for opposing an initiative to investigate Israeli human rights groups critical of the government. He said it was a "strange spectacle" to see Likud members protecting groups that he described as "terrorist collaborators." » Read more

UPDATE 1-UN's Ban "deplores" Israel demolition of hotel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Louis Charbonneau - January 10, 2011 - 1:00am The U.N. chief "deplores" Israel's demolition of the Shepherd Hotel in East Jerusalem and said it only served to heighten tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, a U.N. spokesman said on Monday. The Shepherd Hotel, torn down as part of a settlement project first announced in 2009, was declared "absentee property" by Israel after it captured and annexed East Jerusalem. Israel views all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally. » Read more

US not convinced on settlements-Palestinian envoy ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Louis Charbonneau - January 10, 2011 - 1:00am The Palestinian U.N. envoy said on Monday that his and other U.N. delegations have yet to persuade Washington to support a Security Council push to condemn Israeli settlement work, but they will keep trying. Riyad Mansour, the permanent Palestinian observer to the United Nations, said that an initial draft resolution that condemns and calls for a halt to all West Bank settlements was delivered to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council in December. » Read more

Guest Post: A Capital For One State, or Two? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Council On Foreign Relations (Blog) January 10, 2011 - 1:00am The Shepherd Hotel, partially bulldozed yesterday by private Israeli builders, is located just a few hundred yards from what had been my Jerusalem office until a few months ago. For the past several years, while I was based there working for the Quartet, I would pass the fenced off property daily thinking that the slightly dilapidated structure, built in the 1930s, must have once been elegant and grand. It has been fenced off and unused while its fate was being fought out in the Israeli judicial system. » Read more

Israel hotel demolition escalates fight for East Jerusalem ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Christa Case Bryant - January 10, 2011 - 1:00am The demolition of an East Jerusalem hotel to make way for Jewish homes in a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood has sparked concerns from Europe to Egypt, which suggested a new intifada could break out as a result. The Shepherd Hotel project will bring only 20 Jewish homes to Sheikh Jarrah, but it is at the forefront of a broader, intensely controversial Jewish campaign to establish a foothold in Arab neighborhoods circling the heart of Jerusalem. » Read more

Five controversial Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Ariel Zirulnick - January 11, 2011 - 1:00am In 2000, then-President Bill Clinton suggested that one of the thorniest issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the division of Jerusalem to create two capitals for two states – should be decided along demographic lines. In other words, Jewish neighborhoods would be incorporated into Israel and Arab neighborhoods would become part of the future Palestinian state. » Read more

ISRAEL: Poor diplomacy strikes foreign relations ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times by Batsheva Sobelman - (Blog) January 10, 2011 - 1:00am Israel's foreign relations are suffering these days from an outbreak of poor diplomacy. Not necessarily bad; just poor. Foreign Ministry employees say they are just that, poor. Their basic salaries have been devalued by about 40% since last being updated in the early 1990s, and many of them rely on help from welfare services, say activists from the ministry workers' union. » Read more

Bulldozers begin work for Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Joel Greenberg - January 10, 2011 - 1:00am Bulldozers began tearing down a former hotel building Sunday to make way for a Jewish housing development in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, pushing ahead with a contentious project that has raised concerns in Washington. The work drew a rebuke from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and sharp condemnation from Palestinian officials, further souring the diplomatic atmosphere as the Obama administration works to sustain peace efforts despite a breakdown of direct talks in a dispute over Israeli building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. » Read more

Clinton asks Arabs to oppose Iran nukes, support Palestinian government ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post January 10, 2011 - 1:00am Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton lobbied Arab governments on Monday to help tighten the screws on their Iranian neighbors, saying that sanctions and other measures are hurting Tehran and undermining its ability to acquire components for its nuclear program. Clinton, in the Middle East for four days of talks, also pushed oil-rich Persian Gulf states to do more to back fragile governments in the West Bank and Iraq to create stability in a region that has so frequently veered into war. » Read more