Heading To December
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Tom Segev - October 9, 2007 - 2:36pm

Haim Ramon has been going around for some time with a proposal for power sharing in Jerusalem, and the sky has not fallen. Ostensibly this is quite an amazing phenomenon; there was a time when the vice premier's idea was heard only among the radical left, somewhere between Yesh Gvul and Gush Shalom. This seems to be a turning point of historic proportions.

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Israel Takes Land To Ease Way To Build In E-1 Area
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - October 9, 2007 - 2:34pm

The Israel Defense Forces recently issued an order expropriating over 1,100 dunams of land from four Arab villages located between East Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim. The land is slated to be used for a new Palestinian road that would connect East Jerusalem with Jericho. That in turn would "free up" the E-1 area between Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim - through which the current Jerusalem-Jericho road runs - for a long-planned Jewish development consisting of 3,500 apartments and an industrial park.

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Palestinians Offered Jerusalem Olive Branch
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Times
by James Hider - October 9, 2007 - 2:30pm

Israel is willing to hand over Arab east Jerusalem to the Palestinians as part of a new peace initiative, the Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday. The announcement came amid reports that the two sides were considering handing custody of the Old City’s holiest site to Jordan. Haim Ramon, the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, said that handing over parts of the predominantly Arab east Jerusalem could be on the table during a regional conference to be held in the United States next month.

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Israeli Pm Praises Palestinian Leadership
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Mark Tran - October 9, 2007 - 2:26pm

The current Palestinian leadership is committed to peace with Israel, the Israeli prime minister said today as senior figures discussed a possible division of Jerusalem. Ehud Olmert said he planned to make every effort to pursue peace with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, as he laid out his agenda.

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As Farmers And Fields Rest, A Land Grows Restless
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Steven Erlanger - October 9, 2007 - 1:37pm

As Israel’s Jews start a new year, the country finds itself in the middle of a fierce religious dispute about the sanctity of fruits and vegetables. In the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malahi, a man held a scroll of the Torah, which mandates shmita, a kind of sabbatical for the land which occurs every seven years. Rabbis are pitted against one another, the state and the religious authorities are in conflict, the Israeli Supreme Court is involved, the devout are confused and the cost of produce is rising.

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Giving Them Something To Talk About
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Avi Issacharoff - October 8, 2007 - 4:17pm

One by one, the Palestinian visitors entered the sukkah at the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's official residence last Wednesday. They entered cautiously and hesitantly, noting the decorative Israeli flags closing in on them from all sides. They promptly underwent an accelerated course in Judaism, as Olmert explained the four plant species used in the Sukkot rituals. The pictures, they knew, would certainly not improve their standing among the Palestinian public.

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Why, When And How The Us Challenges Israel’s Actions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Institute For Palestine Studies
by Nadia Hijab - October 8, 2007 - 4:13pm

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said bluntly during his recent meetings with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the credibility of the peace process could only be restored by, among other things, an immediate halt to Israeli settlement, an end to the closures that had ruined the Palestinian economy, and a timeframe to implement final status issues. [1] Abbas thus emphasized not only the need to address final status issues, but also to push for implementation.

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Israel May Ok Division Of Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
October 8, 2007 - 1:38pm

Senior Israeli officials expressed support Monday for the transfer of Arab parts of Jerusalem to Palestinian control, offering a concession on one of the most contentious issues in the Mideast conflict. The offer appeared to fall short of Palestinian calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from key areas of the holy city. The officials spoke as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were to begin talks in Jerusalem to work out a joint document they hope to issue at a U.S.-sponsored peace conference next month. The meetings were closed.

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On Stage In Jerusalem, Jewish And Arab Audiences Hear The Other Side Of The Story
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Ilene Prusher - October 5, 2007 - 3:21pm

The characters: six Jerusalemites. The setting: the embattled city claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians. The point: to get people listening to narratives they didn't think they wanted to hear. Jerusalem Stories is a series of dramatic monologues that are being performed in Jewish and Arab parts of the city, in Hebrew and in Arabic, with the aim of challenging audiences to empathize with the other side – or the "enemy," as many here would say.

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Politics: Mideast Meet Has Ambiguous Agenda
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Khody Akhavi - October 4, 2007 - 2:47pm

As the George W. Bush administration prepares to host its much-publicised Middle East conference, Israeli experts gathered on Capitol Hill Tuesday to discuss whether Washington's latest diplomatic attempts would pave the way for a solution to the long-moribund Palestinian-Israeli peace process. But with less than two months before the November meeting, which is to be held in Annapolis, the sentiment was anything but hopeful.

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