November 21st

Jordan’s King Abdullah II pays rare visit to West Bank, in nod to Palestinian president ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press November 21, 2011 - 1:00am RAMALLAH, West Bank — Jordan’s King Abdullah II paid a rare visit to the West Bank on Monday to show support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as the two moderate leaders try to engage with previously shunned Islamists now on the rise in the region. » Read more

In the West Bank, a contested heritage ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Joel Greenberg - November 20, 2011 - 1:00am JERUSALEM — At a museum just off the desert road from Jerusalem to Jericho in the West Bank, the artifacts of a contested heritage are on display. Colorful mosaic floors from Byzantine-era churches and synagogues, inscriptions, Roman capitals and stone burial boxes — all dug up by Israeli archaeologists in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — are shown at the site, developed by Israel’s West Bank military administration with the Israeli antiquities authority. » Read more

November 18th

The mother of all gambles ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Ahram by Abdel-Moneim Said - (Opinion) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am It is reported that in his attempt to pitch to the Palestinian leadership the Oslo Accords, which he played a key role in negotiating, Mahmoud Abbas -- Abu Mazen -- described them as a gamble. Before long it was palpable that he did not master the rules of the game that he had dragged the Palestinians into. It seems that Abu Mazen, like any skill-less gambler, was placing his hopes solely on being dealt a royal flush. » Read more

Sen. George Mitchell on Mid-East Peace Process ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Free Press by Christine Parrish - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am Senator George Mitchell told an overflow crowd at the University of Maine Hutchinson Center in Belfast on Tuesday morning that the Middle East peace process, which he spent two and a half years shepherding as the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, is not dead and that it is crucial to continue the effort towards a two-state solution. » Read more

The Palestinians' Most Potent Weapon ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National Interest by Paul Pillar - (Blog) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am Nine years ago an article by Gal Luft titled “The Palestinian H-Bomb: Terrorism's Winning Strategy” addressed suicide bombing against Israeli citizens as a fearsome and inexorable force. The tactic instead proved to be a self-destructive fizzle. It earned enemies rather than friends, drove Israelis deeper into their defensive crouch, was ultimately controlled by Israel through measures such as a meandering defensive barrier, and did absolutely nothing to bring Palestinians closer to self-determination and their own state. » Read more

The Eviction of One Palestinian Family Might Cause the Next Political Crisis Over East Jerusalem ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post by Hagit Ofran - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am August 2nd, 2009. The Ghawi and Hannun families of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem are waking to the sounds of police and trucks and movers. In a few hours, their houses will have become the home to settler families, and they will be kicked out to the street. » Read more

Who Will Write Jerusalem's Story? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post by Ronit Avni - (Opinion) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am While Jerusalem has always received its fair share of attention at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, too often it is treated as an idealized symbol rather than a real place. In debates surrounding the future of the city, religious proclamations and lines on maps overshadow the needs and interests of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis who live, work and raise their families in the city. » Read more

Palestinian insistence is key ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times by Ahmad Majdoubeh - (Opinion) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am Israel can be expected to be hostile to the Palestinian UN bid for statehood. The present Israeli government is not only not serious about peace, deliberately seeks to subvert all peace efforts and abort any attempts at arriving at Palestinian statehood, be it through negotiations or through the UN Security Council. » Read more

Right of return, but not in my backyard ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Marcus Sheff - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am On a recent afternoon in Nablus, during the Id al-Adha Muslim holiday, a group of Palestinian men sat down to a conversation in an office suite. As traffic honked and rattled in the streets of this bustling West Bank city, the discussion ranged from the relative popularity of Fatah and Hamas to the man most likely to succeed Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian president. » Read more

Left’s revenge will come ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Yair Lapid - (Opinion) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am Imagine that we are in the year 2013, and the Left is in power. The first thing it will do is pass the “Law for protecting IDF officers and soldiers,” whereby the army would immediately evacuate any community whose residents abuse IDF soldiers. When the Right would furiously claim that the law’s only purpose is to prompt settlement evacuation in Judea and Samaria, Leftist Knesset members will show puzzlement while playing dumb, saying that this is not a leftist law – after all, leftists who reside in settlements will also be evacuated should they dare abuse IDF troops. » Read more