The Cage of “Silent” Negotiations
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Zuheir Kseibati - (Opinion) September 16, 2010 - 12:00am

In light of the carrot and the stick policy used by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her attendance of the sessions to launch the negotiations on the Palestinian-Israeli track, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas picked up the signal again, seeing how his team is still the sole one concerned about the stick and threatened with “unpredictable consequences” if the negotiations were hindered. At the level of the carrot, Washington believes it allows both sides to come up with “creative” exits for the discontinuation of the settlement freeze predicament at the end of the month.

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The freeze as a test
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) September 15, 2010 - 12:00am

Direct negotiations on a final-status agreement opened yesterday at Sharm al-Sheikh, in the shadow of the ongoing dispute over a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

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Where has the hypocrisy gone?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - (Opinion) September 15, 2010 - 12:00am

In the late 1970s or early 1980s, Professor Asa Kasher spoke at a conference of some kind about the differences between Labor Party governments and Likud governments. The Labor governments were hypocritical, and there is something positive about hypocrisy, Kasher said. At least the hypocrite knows there is a binding system of values, and that he is not acting according to them. As a result, he disguises his actions.

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Report: Palestinian civilians' deaths go unpunished
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ali Waked<br /> - September 14, 2010 - 12:00am

he Israel Defense Forces policy of refraining from thoroughly investigating the wrongful deaths of Palestinian civilians absolved IDF soldiers from such action even when criminal charges should be brought against them, B'Tselem said. The conclusion is at the core of a new report by the human rights group, released Tuesday, which said that soldiers who kill Palestinian civilians are rarely prosecuted, even when circumstances clearly indicate foul play.

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Peace Talks? What’s on TV?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Roger Cohen<br /> - (Opinion) September 13, 2010 - 12:00am

I recently went to a dinner here hosted by a charming Israeli couple, just back from Umbria with assorted Italian delicacies, and found the guests riveted not by the ritual of a new round of U.S.-mediated peace talks but by the climax of “A Star is Born.” We all rushed from the table to see 18-year-old Diana Golbi — a Russian immigrant born Diana Golbanova in Moscow — belt out her winning song on the Israeli version of “American Idol.” The runner-up, a Sephardic commander in the Israel Defense Forces named Idan Amedi, looked to the heavens and thanked God for second place.

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Israeli enclave thrust into debate
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Joel Greenberg<br /> - September 13, 2010 - 12:00am

From the four-lane highway linking central Israel to this sprawling settlement town on the West Bank, drivers can see the distant towers of Tel Aviv and, beyond them, the shimmering sea. The enclave of Ariel, with its red-roofed homes, state-of-the art sports complex and tidy streets and parks, looks like an ordinary Israeli town, and feels that way to many of its 19,000 residents.

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Netanyahu's embrace of peace talks keeps Israelis guessing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders <br /> - September 13, 2010 - 12:00am

Israelis have seen it before. A hawkish leader expected to be tough on the Palestinian issue instead embarks on a game-changing path to end the conflict. Menachem Begin did it. So did Yitzhak Rabin. Ariel Sharon split apart his right-wing Likud Party by withdrawing from the Gaza Strip.

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Why the Israeli 'consensus' on settlements is not so simple
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick<br /> - September 13, 2010 - 12:00am

Responding to calls from President Barack Obama to extend an Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted this weekend for the first time that he's open to new limits on building after the Sept. 26 expiration.

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Settler leader: Extending West Bank freeze will end Netanyahu gov't
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Jack Khoury, Chaim Levinson, Jonathan Lis - (Analysis) September 12, 2010 - 12:00am

A continuation of a moratorium on West Bank settlement building would usher the end of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, a prominent settler leader said on Sunday, thus commenting on what many consider to an earlier remark by the premier. Speaking at a meeting of Likud ministers earlier Sunday, Netanyahu hinted that he was open to a formulation of a partial building freeze in the settlements after September 30. "The freeze order is support to expire at the end of the month," Netanyahu said.

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Netanyahu's the Key
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
by Aaron David Miller - (Analysis) September 10, 2010 - 12:00am

Of all the questions hovering over next week’s Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Egypt, the most intriguing and consequential are these: who is Benjamin Netanyahu, and is he willing to break his sacred taboos on issues like Jerusalem and borders to reach a historic agreement with the Palestinians? As important as Obama and Abbas are to the negotiations, Netanyahu is the key. Indeed, it is the cruelest of ironies that the man who has been least committed to serious Israeli-Palestinian negotiations now holds the key to their success.

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