December 2nd

The 29th of November ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Uri Savir - (Opinion) December 1, 2011 - 1:00am November 29, 1947, was a watershed date in modern Jewish history. The family of nations, through the United Nations, decided in Resolution 181 to split Palestine, which was to be vacated by the British Mandate between an independent Jewish state and an independent Arab one. The Jewish state was thus to become the national homeland of the Jewish people. The Jewish side, through the Jewish Agency, accepted the UN resolution with joy and realism. The Arab side, through the Arab League, refused with grim shortsightedness. » Read more

Diplomacy: Treading water in a raging river ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Herb Keinon - December 1, 2011 - 1:00am The end of January is now the new September. Remember September, that month of our collective fears; that month when the Palestinian Authority was taking its statehood bid to the United Nations? September was the month Defense Minister Ehud Barak predicted would unleash a diplomatic tsunami and the month during which Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the Palestinians were planning “the worst violence and spilling of blood that we have ever seen.” Yet September came and went and the tsunami didn’t materialize; the third intifada didn’t break out. » Read more

Netanyahu should end the anti-democratic witch hunt ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz (Editorial) December 2, 2011 - 1:00am Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a conference of jurists earlier this week raised hopes that perhaps the prime minister had decided to repel the recent wave of bills proposed by his right-wing coalition colleagues. Netanyahu used the occasion to make clear what should have been self-evident: “Democracy is not just majority votes and majority rule. There is no way to run a democracy without checks and balances among the different branches of government.” » Read more

Israel needs a peace process to connect with a new Egypt ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Yoel Marcus - (Opinion) December 2, 2011 - 1:00am When I watched the long lines of Egyptian voters on television this week, the names of two historical figures came to mind: Mao Zedong and Shraga Netzer. One was the legendary leader of China, and the other was the leader of the “bloc” in Mapai (the predecessor of the Labor Party), who was involved in everything related to preserving the veteran leadership. » Read more

Fayyad to Haaretz: I will not lead a Palestinian unity government ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Avi Issacharoff - December 2, 2011 - 1:00am Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Thursday that he would not serve as the prime minister of a Fatah-Hamas unity government, nor would he run for president. "I don't intend to run for the presidency or anything else for that matter," Fayyad said in an interview to Haaretz. "I cannot accept being an obstacle, never was and never will be ... I made a very explicit call on the factions ... to go ahead and agree on a new prime minister. That's my position and nothing has happened since then to change my mind ... So the short answer is no." » Read more

Chabot: U.S. Warned That It Would Defund UNESCO ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Roll Call by Representative Steve Chabot - (Opinion) December 1, 2011 - 1:00am On Oct. 31, the United States announced that it would be withholding its contribution to UNESCO in response to that body’s decision to grant full membership to a state of Palestine. This decision was neither rash nor surprising; on the contrary, it was mandated by provisions of two U.S. laws, one of which has been on the books for more than a decade. » Read more

Chabot: U.S. Warned That It Would Defund UNESCO ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Roll Call by Representative Steve Chabot - (Opinion) December 1, 2011 - 1:00am On Oct. 31, the United States announced that it would be withholding its contribution to UNESCO in response to that body’s decision to grant full membership to a state of Palestine. This decision was neither rash nor surprising; on the contrary, it was mandated by provisions of two U.S. laws, one of which has been on the books for more than a decade. » Read more

December 1st

Weakening Abbas only strengthens Hamas ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Douglas Bloomfield - (Opinion) December 1, 2011 - 1:00am In his zeal to punish Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for assorted affronts real and imagined, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may be Hamas’s most important benefactor. The Islamic terror organization has many friends – Iran, Syria, Hezbollah – but none is doing as much to expand its power and popularity from the Gaza Strip to all of the West Bank as the Netanyahu government. » Read more

In Your Eyes a Sandstorm: the Palestinian collective experience ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Jesse Rosenfeld - (Opinion) December 1, 2011 - 1:00am I first met the British journalist Arthur Neslen in Ramallah during the autumn of 2007 when he was researching his new book, In Your Eyes A Sandstorm: Ways of Being Palestinian. A cloud of disillusionment hung over the region at that juncture. The separation wall had all but severed the West Bank, the Gaza blockade was tightening and political division between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) was at its peak. Israeli raids across the West Bank, intended to round up the remnants of the resistance from the Second Intifada, were matched by PA reprisals and arrests against Hamas. » Read more

Inside Out: Back to unilateralism ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Jonathan Rosen - (Opinion) December 1, 2011 - 1:00am Over the past two decades Israel and the PLO have negotiated intermittently over a final-status arrangement to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That process has essentially been at an impasse since 2009 for a variety of reasons, some of which are technical and tactical, while others are more substantive in nature. If we are to accept at face value the statements made by the two parties, the substantive issue for both Israelis and Palestinians preventing negotiations from advancing can be summed up as a lack of confidence in the other’s true intentions. » Read more