Still talking: Annapolis one year on
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC World News
by Paul Wood - November 26, 2008 - 8:00pm

At dinner in Ramallah recently, amid heaped plates of rice and chicken, a raucous but friendly political debate was going on with the usual arm waving and raised voices. One of those at the table was a tough-looking young officer in an elite unit of the Palestinian security forces. He brandished his forearm, declaring: "If you cut my veins open, the blood will fall on the ground to make the word 'Fatah'". Who was the most important enemy: Hamas or the Israelis, I asked. Hamas, everyone told me. They had to be dealt with before anything else could be accomplished.

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Top UN official: Israel's policies are like apartheid of bygone era
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Shlomo Shamir - November 24, 2008 - 8:00pm

United Nations General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann on Monday likened Israel's policies toward the Palestinians to South Africa's treatment of blacks under apartheid. Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were like "the apartheid of an earlier era," said Brockmann, of Nicaragua, speaking at the annual debate marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. He added: "We must not be afraid to call something what it is."

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What preoccupies young Palestinian minds
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Daoud Kuttub - November 23, 2008 - 8:00pm

The occupation is foremost on Palestinian youth’s mind. This was made clear in the Palestinian village of Beita, near Nablus, at an event held on November 17: the opening of the youth development resource centre, funded by USAID and some private international technical companies.

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Jewish pilgrimage stokes tensions in Hebron
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP)
November 20, 2008 - 8:00pm

Israel beefed up security on Friday as 25,000 Jewish pilgrims were expected in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron amid fears of violence as a group of settlers defied an eviction order. Dozens of police and troops took up positions outside the house where about 100 hardline settlers and their supporters have vowed to resist any attempt to enforce the High Court order.

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What Obama Needs to Do First
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum
by M.J. Rosenberg - (Opinion) November 20, 2008 - 8:00pm

The Palestinian Authority, in a brilliant display of public relations, ran Hebrew-language ads this week, in Israel’s four major newspapers, endorsing the Arab Peace Initiative (formerly known as the Saudi plan) and calling on Israelis to support it, too. The Palestinian Authority is also urging President-elect Barack Obama to put his prestige behind the initiative as a critical first step to help end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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Palestinians advertise peace plan in Israeli press
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Ari Rabinovitch - November 19, 2008 - 8:00pm

The PLO took the unprecedented step of placing advertisements in Israeli newspapers on Thursday to promote a six-year-old Arab peace plan for the region. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestine Liberation Organisation published the full-page notices in Hebrew in four major dailies. They described the Arab plan, which was first proposed in 2002 but has long found little interest from Israel.

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Polls show Israel's Likud party leading
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Aron Heller - November 19, 2008 - 8:00pm

A pair of polls published Thursday showed opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu's hardline Likud party leading Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's moderate Kadima party in the run-up to Israel's Feb. 10 elections. The polls also indicated strong support for Netanyahu's hard-line allies. If that support stands through the elections, it would position Netanyahu to put together a hawkish coalition that would likely end peace talks with the Palestinians, at least in their current form.

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Palestinians will need Barack Obama's helping hand
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Yasser Abed Rabbo - November 18, 2008 - 8:00pm

President-elect Barack Obama's defiantly positive campaign for change has inspired hope not only in the millions of Americans who voted for him, but also in the billions of others worldwide who could not. Across the Middle East, as elsewhere, expectations are building that his presidency will herald a new era for America's role in the world.

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Dividing Jerusalem, one wall at a time
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Bradley Burston - November 18, 2008 - 8:00pm

There is a new wall in the downtown heart of the Holy City. It is, in fact, a new security fence. It is not tall, nor built to last. But the wall, and what it protects, may do more to undermine Israel's moral claims to Jerusalem than the huge concrete structure that has marred the city's Arab eastern half for years. There is no sign on the wall. There is no explanation for the need of a uniformed guard posted at its entrance. There is no indication, therefore, that it protects construction on a quarter-billion dollar monument to insensitivity.

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Israel police remove protest tent
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
November 18, 2008 - 8:00pm

Israeli police have pulled down a protest tent set up by a Palestinian family evicted from their home of 52 years in East Jerusalem. They also arrested three international activists and one Palestinian. Fawzia al-Kurd, 57, had been sleeping in the tent since she and her disabled husband were forced from the house last week on the basis of a court ruling. Jewish groups have claimed ownership of the site as part of efforts to settle the Israeli-occupied east of the city.

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