June 25th, 2012

Negotiator: UN bid underway, US asked for delay ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency June 25, 2012 - 12:00am PLO negotiator Muhammad Ishtayya said Monday that the US and other foreign nations were pressing the Palestinian leadership to suspend its campaign for membership of UN bodies until after the US presidential election. Ishtayya told the official PA radio Voice of Palestine that the leadership had initiated the process of obtaining a UN General Assembly resolution which recognizes a Palestinian state on borders prior to Israel's occupation in 1967. Palestinian officials have opened talks with Arab states and France to get the process started, he said. » Read more

Israel, U.S. planning largest-ever military drill ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua June 25, 2012 - 12:00am Israel and the United States are set to hold their largest-ever missile defense drill in October, local media said on Monday. About 3,000 soldiers are expected to take part in the drill and they will practice responses to a simulated mass barrage of hundreds of missiles fired at Israel simultaneously from Iran and Syria, the Ma'ariv daily reported. Israel will deploy its upgraded Arrow 2 missile defense system, while the U.S. do its Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense and PAC-3 Patriot air defense systems during the drill, according to the report. » Read more

The Third Intifada Is Inevitable ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Nathan Thrall - (Opinion) June 22, 2012 - 12:00am EARLIER this month, at a private meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his security advisers, a group of Middle East experts and former intelligence officers warned that a third Palestinian intifada was imminent. The immediate catalyst, they said, could be another mosque vandalized by Jewish settlers, like the one burned on Tuesday, or the construction of new settlement housing. » Read more

Hamas threatens to escalate attacks on Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press by Ian Deitch - June 24, 2012 - 12:00am Gaza's militant Hamas rulers threatened to escalate fighting with Israel on Saturday after airstrikes killed several gunmen in the coastal territory, and Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel wounded one person and damaged an elementary school in the country's south. The two sides periodically clash, but this flare-up was the most serious in months. It started with an attack by a little known al-Qaida-inspired Palestinian militant group but has extended to drag in Hamas. » Read more

Israel jittery after Brotherhood victory in Egypt ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press by Josef Federman - June 25, 2012 - 12:00am The Muslim Brotherhood victory in Egyptian presidential elections, announced Sunday, has raised fears in Israel that its strategic 1979 peace agreement with its southern neighbor could be in danger. In contrast, in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, ecstatic residents flocked into the streets, fired guns in the air and handed out candy in celebration. Israel's peace agreement with Egypt, its first with an Arab country, is a cornerstone of Israeli security. The agreement ended decades of hostilities, with to five wars and thousands of deaths. » Read more

Lally Weymouth interviews Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Wall Street Journal by Lally Weymouth - (Interview) June 22, 2012 - 12:00am “If only we could clone him,” a senior U.S. official said to me recently, speaking about Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Held in great respect by foreigners, Fayyad may soon find himself out of a job if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (also called Abu Mazen) forges a national unity government with Hamas. This past week, Fayyad sat down in the West Bank city of Ramallah with The Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth. Excerpts: » Read more

Gazans celebrate Brotherhood victory in Egypt ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press by Ibrahim Barzak - June 25, 2012 - 12:00am The Gaza Strip erupted in celebratory gunfire on Sunday with news that the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate won the presidency in neighboring Egypt, but one person was killed. Tens of thousands of joyous Palestinians took to the streets across the territory after Egypt announced that Mohammed Morsi won last weekend's runoff election, the first time an Islamist has won that nation's highest office. » Read more

June 23rd

Lally Weymouth interviews Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Lally Weymouth - (Interview) June 22, 2012 - 12:00am “If only we could clone him,” a senior U.S. official said to me recently, speaking about Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Held in great respect by foreigners, Fayyad may soon find himself out of a job if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (also called Abu Mazen) forges a national unity government with Hamas. This past week, Fayyad sat down in the West Bank city of Ramallah with The Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth. Excerpts: » Read more

June 22nd

The game of buying time ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Ahram by Saleh Al-Naami - (Opinion) June 22, 2012 - 12:00am It is difficult to keep track of how many media interviews Shaul Mofaz, acting Israeli prime minister, was given to publicise a political initiative aiming at reviving negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA). In order to make his initiative seem serious, Mofaz declared that re-launching talks will be based on 1967 borders, and that he will seek to meet with PA President Mahmoud Abbas to present the proposal to him. » Read more

The minuses of unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Shaul Arieli - (Opinion) June 19, 2012 - 12:00am The stalemate in negotiations with the Palestinians and the assumption that it's impossible at present to reach a final-status solution have revived the idea of evacuating part of the West Bank unilaterally. Supporters of this idea believe that current trends, especially the expansion of the settlement enterprise, must be stopped before taking a decision that will anchor the two-state solution. A unilateral evacuation, they believe, will create a two-state reality that will make it easier to implement a final-status agreement. » Read more