Israel Must Stop Stalling on Peace Process
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) January 12, 2012 - 1:00am

Just as with previous efforts to advance negotiations on a final-status agreement, the Jordanian attempt to breath new life into the diplomatic process has gotten hung up on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policy of dragging his feet. As Barak Ravid reported in yesterday's Haaretz in Hebrew, at this week's meeting in Amman with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, Israeli envoy Isaac Molho refused to present Israel's positions on borders and security.

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Do Discard the "Resistance Axis" Hoax
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Michael Young - (Opinion) January 12, 2012 - 1:00am

This past week several British parliamentarians were in Beirut to learn more about the situation in Lebanon and Syria. They met with politicians, academics and journalists, and an argument they took home with them was particularly intriguing. It pertains to what has become known in the West as the “resistance axis.”

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Egypt: Israeli Pilgrimmage 'Impossible' This Year
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Maggie Michael - January 10, 2012 - 1:00am

CAIRO — Egypt's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday it had told Israel that it would not be "appropriate" for Israeli pilgrims to make an annual visit to the tomb of a 19th-century Jewish holy man in the Nile Delta, as activists mobilized to block the pilgrimage route. Ceremonies at the tomb of Rabbi Yaakov Abu Hatzira have triggered yearly political sparring in Egypt throughout most of the last decade, with Islamists, nationalists, and others claiming that the government by allowing the pilgrimage is pursuing an unpopular policy of normalization with the country's former enemy.

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Lieberman’s fury
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Musa Keilani - (Opinion) January 1, 2012 - 1:00am

It is an understatement to say that Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is hopping mad at some of his European counterparts because of their objective observations about Israel’s practices and policies against not only the Palestinians living under its occupation but also its own Arab citizens.

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Diplomacy should conform to international norms
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Jay Bushinsky - (Opinion) December 23, 2011 - 1:00am

Two major mistakes were by Israeli policy- makers: The Oslo Accords of 1993 and the unilateral and unconditional withdrawal of troops and civilians from the Gaza Strip in 2005. These ill-considered initiatives have caused seemingly insoluble problems. They were radical departures from the Jewish state’s original adherence to traditional diplomacy based on international norms, and deviated from the initially consistent effort to gain recognition as a bona fide member of the international community.

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Uprisings opportunity for new Israel foreign policy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Andrew Friedman - (Opinion) December 15, 2011 - 1:00am

The explosion of popular protests last December against the ruling order in the Arab world was one of those moments in world history that caused observers to watch with bated breath. As the protests spread from Tunisia to Egypt to Yemen and beyond, those of us old enough to remember the 1989 Velvet Revolution could not help but wonder where it all would lead, whether dictators like Hosni Mubarak would use their militaries to quash the protests and what true democracy in the Arab world would mean for the West in general, and for Israel in particular.

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Mideast can accept Israel if Netanyahu will let it
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Carlo Strenger - (Opinion) December 14, 2011 - 1:00am

I have spent two days in Doha, Qatar at the United Nations Alliance of Civilization conference. The real value of such forums is in the informal meetings behind the scenes. You meet people you would never get a chance to talk to otherwise. The great challenge is to open up sufficiently to allow prejudices and preconceptions about nations, ideologies and other groups to be challenged by empirical experience.

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The moment of truth
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Saeb Erakat - (Opinion) December 11, 2011 - 1:00am

The two-state solution on the 1967 borders has been the official Palestinian position for the past 23 years. Since then, we have engaged Israel and the international community and exerted sincere efforts to achieve our inalienable right to self-determination through the establishment of a viable and sovereign Palestinian state on the territory occupied by Israel in 1967, including East Jerusalem, and a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.

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US expects direct Israeli-Palestinian talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Herb Keinon - December 8, 2011 - 1:00am

Both the US and the Quartet expect Israelis and Palestinians to meet in direct talks and exchange comprehensive proposals there on the issue of security and territory, US Ambassador Dan Shapiro said Thursday. Shapiro, at a press conference in Tel Aviv, said that this position has been made clear to both sides. His comments are significant because the Palestinians have said in recent days that while they have presented the Quartet with comprehensive proposals, Israel has refused to do so - casting Israel in the role of peace obstructor.

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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.

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