Abbas: Talks may go on without freeze
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico
by Laura Rozen - September 22, 2010 - 12:00am

NEW YORK — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told American Jewish leaders Tuesday that direct talks with Israel could continue even if a partial moratorium on West Bank settlement construction is not extended.

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Peres meets Abbas in New York
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
(Analysis) September 21, 2010 - 12:00am

NEW YORK (Ma’an) -- All Israelis are watching negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians attentively hoping for success, Israeli President Shimon Peres said Monday in New York. At a news conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Peres addressed questions from the Palestinian press as to whether he was taking a leadership role in the ongoing talks, and whether he had intervened in the process.

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Abbas: Israel can call itself whatever it wants
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
(Analysis) September 21, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a Monday night interview with Palestinian news source Ma'an that "Israel was free to call itself the Israeli Zionist Jewish Empire." The PA leader made cynical remarks to Maan shortly after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called upon Abbas to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

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Hamas trying to replace PLO's role: official
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
(Analysis) September 20, 2010 - 12:00am

RAMALLAH, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian official on Monday accused the Hamas movement of trying to introduce itself to the international community as an alternative to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Member of the PLO Executive Committee, Hanan Ashrawi, told Voice of Palestine radio that Hamas "is trying to open dialogue with the United States and European countries by several means in order to gain legitimacy and the recognition of the United States. "

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Israeli Arabs pawns in a sham 'peace' gameli
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Linda Heard - September 20, 2010 - 12:00am

On Sunday, Israel’s unsavory Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened Palestinian negotiators that if they refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Arab Israelis could have their rights to citizenship withdrawn. This “needs to be one of the central issues on the negotiating table in light of the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” he told his Cabinet colleagues.

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Former Israeli premier details failed peace offer
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Matti Friedman - September 19, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel's former premier gave his most detailed description yet of his 2008 peace offer to the Palestinians, saying in a lecture Sunday that if the current talks are to succeed, the agreement would have to resemble the plan the Palestinians turned down two years ago. The Palestinians deemed Ehud Olmert's offer insufficient at the time, but wanted the more hawkish premier who replaced him, Benjamin Netanyahu, to use it as a starting point for negotiations. Instead, Netanyahu has taken it off the table.

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U.S. confirms intense efforts to restart Israel-Syria peace efforts
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Zvi Barel, Barak Ravid - September 16, 2010 - 12:00am

Special U.S. envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell confirmed at a press conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday that the United States is making intense efforts to restart negotiations between Israel and Syria. Mitchell said U.S. President Barack Obama has been briefed on the results of these efforts. Mitchell said Washington did not consider the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations a barrier to Israeli-Syria talks. On the contrary, he said, the two tracks could help each other.

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Plan B for peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Ari Shavit - (Opinion) September 16, 2010 - 12:00am

On October 5, 1995, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin presented the Oslo 2 accord to the Knesset. In the speech he made on that momentous occasion, Rabin pledged that in the final-status agreement, Jerusalem would remain united, the settlement blocs would remain part of Israel and the security border would be the Jordan Valley. He also said Israel would not return to the June 4, 1967 lines and that the Palestinians would run their own lives in the framework of an entity that would be less than a state.

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Abbas Says Israel Talks Will Continue
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Mark Landler - September 16, 2010 - 12:00am

After two days of difficult peace negotiations with Israel over the issue of Jewish settlements, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, sounded a modestly positive note on Thursday, declaring that he saw no alternative but to keep talking. The Palestinians have threatened to walk out of the talks if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not extend a partial moratorium on the construction of settlements, something he has refused to do.

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No sign impasse is resolved as Clinton ends Mideast trip
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Glenn Kessler - September 16, 2010 - 12:00am

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday wrapped up three days of intense Middle East diplomacy that produced good atmospherics but no sign that an impasse over Israeli settlement construction has been resolved. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said before meeting with Clinton in this West Bank city that both sides recognize there is "no alternative" to continuing peace efforts. But he gave little sign that he is willing to keep talks going after a partial moratorium on Israeli construction expires Sept. 30.

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