Q&A: ''Israeli Settlements Killing Two-Nation Solution''
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Jerrold Kessel, Pierre Klochendler - (Interview) December 30, 2009 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM, Dec 30 (IPS) - In the absence of any progress towards peace between Israelis and Palestinians, leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) are adopting a reasonable approach as a way of building up international pressure on Israel to get it back to the negotiating table.

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Hamas: Israel refusing to free 4 senior prisoners
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ali Waked - December 29, 2009 - 1:00am

The Hamas organization says Israel is refusing to release the "heaviest" prisoners as part of a possible prisoner exchange deal. The movement's official website on Tuesday mentioned the names of Marwan Barghouti, Ahmed Saadat, Ibrahim Hamed and Abdullah Barghouti. Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said that there was no news on the talks aimed at securing kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit's release.

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Reports: Hamas flexible on prisoner expulsion
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 24, 2009 - 1:00am

Hamas is leaning toward accepting Israel’s demand to deport more than 100 prisoners in an exchange deal that would secure the release of a captured soldier, news reports said on Thursday. The Lebanese daily Al-Mustaqbal reported on Wednesday that Hamas would allow 123 prisoners to be deported in an exchange that would also see the release of some 1,000 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.

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Israeli minister: Barghouthi must be freed with or without Shalit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 24, 2009 - 1:00am

Israel should release imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi, with or with out a prisoner exchange deal, Israel’s Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said on Wednesday. “I call to release Marwan Barghouthi not in the deal with Hamas … these are two entirely different issues,” he told a news conference in East Jerusalem’s American Colony hotel. Ben-Eliezer has called for Barghouthi’s release in the past.

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Hamas likely to accept Israel offer on Shalit within days
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yuval Azoulay, Avi Issacharoff, Jack Khoury - December 24, 2009 - 1:00am

Hamas announced on Wednesday that the German mediator involved in the talks to release kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit had delivered Israel's offer. Hamas' deputy political leader, Moussa Abu Marzouk, said that top officials in the group were studying Israel's offer and would respond to the German mediators within days. Media outlets in the Gaza Strip said that a Hamas delegation would head from Gaza to Cairo on Thursday, and then to Damascus, where they would meet with members of Hamas' political wing there to discuss their response to what Israel has put on the table.

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Row between Israeli defense officials jeopardizing Shalit talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff - (Analysis) December 23, 2009 - 1:00am

Just as negotiations reached their most crucial juncture yet, they seemed in danger of being sidelined by a daft, superfluous clash between Netanyahu's political adviser Uzi Arad, Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin Tuesday. Arad never hid his opposition to the deal, whose current format he considers a strategic error, but it now seems he could have been actively trying to undermine it.

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Report: Israel refuses release of 7 prisoners
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Roee Nahmias - December 23, 2009 - 1:00am

Western diplomatic sources told al-Hayat newspaper that Israel agreed to release 443 of the 450 prisoners Hamas has demanded be freed in the first phase of a prisoner exchange deal for the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. In addition, the sources said Israel has demanded that over 100 of the prisoners to be freed be banned from returning to the West Bank.

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Prisoners' families say deportation better than nothing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 23, 2009 - 1:00am

Rumors of a prisoner release are notoriously hard on families of the detained. As the back-and-forth between Israel and Gaza factions continues at a heated pace, Ma’an spoke with the wives and children of some of Palestine’s most prominent detainees. Abla Sa’adat is the wife of one of the nine prisoners identified by Israeli media earlier in the week as one of the nine high-profile prisoners whose release the swap deal depends on.

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Israeli Consensus Cracks over Shalit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Rachelle Kliger - December 23, 2009 - 1:00am

Every day for the past three and a half years, campaigners have sat at a makeshift tent outside the official prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem in protest, cajoling passersby to sign a petition urging the release of captured soldier Gilad Shalit. At first, the campaigners were loud and aggressive. People who passed the tent without signing would get called back, stickers and fliers thrown into their faces. Not signing, the campaigners explained, was simply not an option.

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Vatican, Israel joust over Jerusalem site
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - December 23, 2009 - 1:00am

The government of Israel seems to be embracing the Christmas spirit. This week it is organizing carols and tree giveaways in Jerusalem, bus service to Bethlehem and even a fireworks show in Nazareth with an apparent eye on burnishing the nation's reputation for religious diversity. But Israel won't be giving the Christmas gift near the top of the Vatican's wish list this year: possession of a Mt. Zion holy site where Jesus is believed to have gathered his disciples for the Last Supper.

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