The American Way out and Arab Divisions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Abdullah Iskandar - (Opinion) January 10, 2010 - 1:00am

On the occasion of her talks with Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in Washington last Friday, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to palter about the real obstacle to resuming the Palestinian peace process. Prior to the visit of the US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell to the region, she relegated the problem of the ongoing Israeli settlements – on Palestinian territory designed to be part of the prospective Palestinian State– into a theoretical or even an academic issue.

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Clinton urges Israel, Palestinians to plunge into talks
Media Mention of Ziad Asali In The Los Angeles Times - January 9, 2010 - 1:00am

Reporting from Washington-- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday urged Palestinians and Israelis to plunge into negotiations over the most difficult issues dividing them as a way of breaking an impasse in peace talks. Clinton said negotiations on major issues, such as the borders of a future Palestinian state or the status of Jerusalem, would help defuse the dispute over the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank that has obstructed progress toward peace.

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Restarting Mideast Peace Talks: Back to the Treadmill?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Time
by Tony Karon - (Opinion) January 6, 2010 - 1:00am

The Middle East peace process is a lot like a daytime TV soap opera — it has repeated the same dramatic formula for two decades and looks set to continue in the same vein, never reaching a denouement. Word from the region ahead of next week's visit by the Obama Administration's special envoy, the retired Senator George Mitchell, is that the U.S. plans to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks on a two-year deadline for the creation of a Palestinian state. That time frame was immediately dismissed as unrealistic by Israel's Foreign Minister. Skeptics might remember that President George W.

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Saudi Arabia backs Egyptian plan for renewed peace talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from
by Zvi Barel - (Analysis) January 6, 2010 - 1:00am

Saudi Arabia is adopting an Egyptian plan for the resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and is trying to rally Syrian support for the continuation of the negotiations process. Egyptian sources told Haaretz Tuesday that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas "has expressed willingness to accept the Egyptian plan on condition that it will also enjoy the support of Arab leaders, which is the reason of the Egyptian and Saudi effort to rally broader Arab support so that Abbas will have the necessary backing."

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PM: World must press PA to return to talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Herb Keinon - (Analysis) January 6, 2010 - 1:00am

The international community has to stop "coddling" the Palestinians and tell them unequivocally that they need to return to the negotiating table, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told a visiting US congressional delegation on Tuesday. Netanyahu told the delegation, led by Congressman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), that the refusal of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to enter negotiations is bad for the PA, pushes peace further away, and only strengthens Hamas.

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Being Israel's ambassador
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Jeremy Benami - (Opinion) January 6, 2010 - 1:00am

Being an Israeli ambassador these days can't be easy. On the one hand, you're working for a prime minister whose strong suit is public relations, who at least talks of peace with the Palestinians and who has consistently judged that engaging in the diplomatic process rather than refusing to talk plays better with domestic and international audiences.

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Israeli officers cancel UK trip over arrest fears
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
(Editorial) January 5, 2010 - 1:00am

Bethlehem – Ma’an – Israel cancelled the departure of a military delegation to Britain last week after authorities there said they could not guarantee the officers would be safe from arrest. The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Tuesday that the delegation included a colonel, lieutenant colonel and a major. Approached by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affiars, the UK government said it could not promise the three would not face arrest.

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Gov't opposes 'borders first' approach
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Khaled Abu Toameh, Herb Keinon - January 5, 2010 - 1:00am

Israel's top decision-makers are against discussing the border issue first in future negotiations with the Palestinians, The Jerusalem Post has learned. PM prepared to start immediate talks with PA without preconditions Separating final borders from other core issues would allow negotiators to avoid the thorny settlement construction dispute.

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Fresh US push for Mideast peace: 'More like jazz than chess'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - (Analysis) January 5, 2010 - 1:00am

Tel Aviv The US is launching a fresh diplomatic push to renew Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, this time with the help of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as a go-between. Top officials have held a flurry of high-level meetings in Egypt this week. But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is digging in his heels for a full freeze on Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank before restarting negotiations. Israel is balking at agreeing to a deadline for a peace deal.

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Almost irreversible
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - January 4, 2010 - 1:00am

The first decade of the twenty-first century, which ended a few days ago, witnessed the undoing of all the positive milestones and achievements that had occurred in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process in the last decade of the twentieth century. That decade started with the first international peace conference in Madrid. This was followed by the first Arab-Israel multilateral and bilateral negotiations, which ended with the signing of the first Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, the Oslo Accords.

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