Hamas Looks to the Future: With Gains Come Dilemmas ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace by Yezid Sayigh - (Analysis) March 8, 2012 - 1:00am Since the start of 2012, the head of the Hamas government in Gaza, Ismail Haniyya, has traveled to Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey, Qatar, Bahrain, and Iran. Six years after Hamas achieved victory at the Palestinian ballot box, it has received genuine regional recognition.  » Read more

Let's Make a Deal ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy by Aaron David Miller - (Opinion) May 10, 2012 - 12:00am Having spent the better part of two decades traveling the negotiator's highway, I've often thought about why some deals get made along the way and others don't. Granted, I've labored almost exclusively in the Middle East coal mines -- an often bizarre, idiosyncratic, and exceptionally dysfunctional place where deals rarely, if ever, get done. » Read more

Changes in Israeli Policy after the Netanyahu-Mofaz Deal ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Institute for Near East Policy by David Makovsky - (Analysis) May 9, 2012 - 12:00am In a stunning political shift, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz, the newly elected head of the leading opposition party Kadima, forged a national unity government in Israel late Monday night. The move adds 28 Kadima parliamentarians to the ruling coalition, increasing the current government's tally to 94 of the Knesset's 120 seats, the most ever. Mofaz will become vice prime minister, a member of the inner security cabinet, and a minister-without-portfolio. Various portfolios will be given to other Kadima members. » Read more

Refugees join Palestinians as the reviled 'other' in Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Mya Guarnieri - (Opinion) May 10, 2012 - 12:00am On Tuesday, Israelis woke up to the surprising news that the early elections announced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday had been cancelled. In a deal made while the country was asleep, Mr Netanyahu forged a new coalition with the centre-right party Kadima. Now the Knesset will march in lockstep behind the prime minister, meaning little will change. Not that elections would have made much of a difference, anyway - the popular Mr Netanyahu had been expected to win by a landslide. » Read more

Likud's ideology will now move toward the center ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Israel Harel - (Opinion) May 10, 2012 - 12:00am To attack Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t need Shaul Mofaz. Such a strike, if it is ever carried out ‏(and it seems it won’t be necessary‏), will enjoy consensus support even without the Kadima chairman. » Read more

Divided Palestine ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star (Editorial) May 10, 2012 - 12:00am Benjamin Netanyahu’s abandonment of his early election and the revelation of a new coalition government have once again highlighted the need for the various Palestinian factions to form a cohesive front, and soon. » Read more

Real Winner in Israel Deal? Not Bibi. ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by J.J. Goldberg - (Opinion) May 10, 2012 - 12:00am There are two ways to read the grand coalition deal that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cooked up with Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz on May 8. One is that the wily Netanyahu has once again outwitted his rivals, bought another year as grandmaster of Israeli politics, neutralized the plodding Mofaz and gained almost wall-to-wall backing if he attacks Iran. Mofaz, in this reading, appended his 28-member Knesset caucus to the ruling Likud’s 27 in order to save his neck from a September 4 snap election, which would have cut Kadima’s strength by nearly two-thirds. » Read more

How a rattled Netanyahu outflanked Likud's militant settler faction ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian by Harriet Sherwood - (Analysis) May 10, 2012 - 12:00am Binyamin Netanyahu's stunning political coup this week, calling off elections and forming a unity government, was partly a response to increasingly strident demands of rightwing settlers in the West Bank coming from within his own party. » Read more

Surprise coalition in Israel raises hopes for peace ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Boston Globe (Editorial) May 10, 2012 - 12:00am The surprise agreement between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz, leader of the Kadima party, offers some glimmer of hope for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, because a government that includes Mofaz’s centrist party is more likely to seek a peace deal than a government involving only the Israeli right. But the greater consequence may unfold over time, as Netanyahu and Mofaz begin to address a little-discussed problem — the unstable nature of Israeli politics. » Read more

Netanyahu, Barak, and Mofaz are delegitimizing Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) May 10, 2012 - 12:00am The delegitimization of Israel has been accelerating at a dizzying pace these past couple of weeks − only this campaign is being waged here, in Israel, not by critics abroad. This latest attack of delegitimization is much more serious than what goes on in the rest of the world. This time the country is being delegitimized in the eyes of its own people. In the end, not only will the world stop believing Israel, Israelis themselves will stop believing in it or its institutions. » Read more