U.S. Pressures Abbas on Peace Talks, Official Says
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bloomberg
by Saud Abu Ramadan, Gwen Ackerman - January 26, 2010 - 1:00am

The U.S. is putting pressure on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to resume peace talks with Israel while avoiding confrontation with the Jewish state, a senior Palestinian official said. “Washington, along with the international community, is pressuring the Palestinians without obliging Israel to stop settlement construction,” Nabil Shaath, a member of the decision-making Central Committee of Abbas’s Fatah party, said today in an e-mailed statement.

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Lots of peace plans, a little progress
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Winnipeg Free Press
by Samuel Segev - January 26, 2010 - 1:00am

Israel and the Arab world on Wednesday will be watching with great interest United States President Barack Obama's State of the Union address to Congress. In a recent interview with Time magazine, Obama admitted that he "overestimated" his ability to persuade both Israel and the Palestinians to resume their peace negotiations. Nevertheless, Obama made it clear that the U.S. will continue to work with the parties to achieve that goal.

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U.S. lawmakers to Obama: Press Israel to ease Gaza siege
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Natasha Mozgovaya - January 26, 2010 - 1:00am

Fifty-four members of the U.S. Congress have signed a letter asking President Barack Obama to put pressure on Israel to ease the siege of the Gaza Strip. The letter was the initiative of Representatives Jim McDermott from Washington and Keith Ellison from Minnesota, both of whom are Democrats. Ellison is the first American Muslim to ever win election to Congress.

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U.S. fully committed to Middle East peace: Mitchell
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from China View
January 25, 2010 - 1:00am

AMMAN, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The United States is committed to comprehensive Middle East peace and the two-state solution which stipulates the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state, U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell said on Sunday. "President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. are fully committed to a comprehensive peace in the Middle East," Mitchell told reporters following a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

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Editorial: Obama and Mideast
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
(Editorial) January 25, 2010 - 1:00am

US President Barack Obama hit the mark when he acknowledged that the Middle East peace process has not moved forward; that “we overestimated our ability to persuade” the Palestinians and Israelis “to start engaging in a meaningful conversation;” and that “what we did this year didn’t produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted.” But in the Time magazine interview marking the first anniversary of his inauguration, Obama’s next comment was odd: “If we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high.”

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Threatening posturing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
(Opinion) January 25, 2010 - 1:00am

Israel is not only talking down peace prospects in the Middle East, it is also behaving aggressively towards Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, and has made clear its intention to strike at Iranian nuclear capabilities. A few days ago, an Israeli minister said that the battle against Hizbollah, in southern Lebanon, is not over. He was clear in describing the Israel war against Lebanon in the summer of 2006 as unfinished business, saying that it is only a matter of time before his country will wage war again on Lebanon.

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Israel and Palestinians prepare for battle over UN report
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Tobias Buck, Harvey Morris - January 25, 2010 - 1:00am

Israel and the Palestinian Authority are preparing for a fresh diplomatic battle over the controversial United Nations report alleging that Israel and the Islamist Hamas group committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Both sides are under pressure to show they are implementing the report's recommendations before February 5, when Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, is due to issue a progress report on the issue to the UN General Assembly. Israel, in particular, is bracing itself for further condemnation in a forum that Israeli diplomats have long regarded as hostile to their country.

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Palestinians study US idea for Mideast talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
January 25, 2010 - 1:00am

President Mahmoud Abbas is studying a US proposal for talks between the Palestinians and Israel at a level below full-scale negotiations between their leaders, a Palestinian official said on Monday. The proposal is the latest idea by US Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell to bring about a resumption of peace talks that have been frozen for 13 months. Palestinian sources familiar with Mitchell's weekend round of diplomacy said he had proposed confidence-building measures that would improve conditions in the Palestinian territories.

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Outlook for peace process grim
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Omar Karmi - January 24, 2010 - 1:00am

Samer Arar, 26, was not impressed with the visit on Friday of George Mitchell, the US Middle East envoy. Mr Mitchell was in Ramallah for talks with Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO leader, in a renewed, and so far fruitless, US effort to get a peace process between Palestinians and Israelis going again. A waiter in a restaurant in central Ramallah, Mr Arar said Mr Mitchell’s efforts were “for nothing”.

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The perils of certainty
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ibishblog
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) January 23, 2010 - 1:00am

Among the most dangerous aspects of the political culture surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on both sides are glib assertions of inevitable victory and the uninterrogated assumptions that inevitably lie behind them. It's an obvious point, but was brought home to me with some force yesterday when a friend pointed out the following passage from a particularly foolish Arab-American blog:

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