Palestinians say it's time to recognise their state
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Douglas Hamilton - November 10, 2010 - 1:00am

ERUSALEM, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Israel's plan to build new homes on occupied land should be countered by international recognition of a Palestinian state, the chief Palestinian negotiator said on Tuesday. Raising the stakes in deadlocked U.S.-sponsored peace talks, Saeb Erekat said it was clear from the latest announcement of building plans that Israel wants settlements, not peace. "Israeli unilateralism is a call for immediate international recognition of the Palestinian state," he said in a statement.

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Israel's latest building plan is a pointless provocation
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) November 10, 2010 - 1:00am

"That's my character," the scorpion says to the frog, in a familiar joke, as it stings the frog to death after being transported by its victim across the river. It appears that the Interior Ministry, the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee and planning authorities in Ariel suffer from similar symptoms.

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UN: No change in Gaza despite easing of Israel blockade
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Jon Donnison - November 10, 2010 - 1:00am

In June Israel said it would lift some of its restrictions on Gaza to allow in more food and consumer goods. The move followed international pressure after the deaths of nine Turkish activists aboard a flotilla of ships trying to break the blockade. The head of UN operations in Gaza said few people had noticed any difference. "There's been no material change for the people on the ground here in terms of their status, the aid dependency, the absence of any recovery or reconstruction, no economy," the UN's John Ging told the BBC.

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Netanyahu to Ban: 'Don’t erase 4,000 years of history'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Tovah Lazaroff - November 9, 2010 - 1:00am

The United Nations should not erase 4,000 years of historic Jewish connection to the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb just to score a political point, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the organization's Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when the two men met Monday evening in New York.

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The Audacity
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Hussein Shobokshi - (Opinion) November 9, 2010 - 1:00am

The international community lacks merit, honesty, objectivity and credibility, when it focuses its attention on the issue of Iran's nuclear program, and yet turns a blind eye to the alarming situation that is Israel's well-established nuclear activity. This issue must be a cause for concern, considering the fact that Israel has a dangerous record in occupying the lands of others, and in unlawfully assaulting the property of neighbouring and non-neighbouring states, in a flagrant violation of international laws and conventions.

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PLO official: Egypt, Palestinians stress to halt Jewish settlement
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
November 8, 2010 - 1:00am

RAMALLAH, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian leadership and Egypt have agreed that any initiative to push forward peace talks between Palestinians and Israel should base on halting Jewish settlement in the occupied lands, a Palestinian official said Monday. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization ( PLO) official, denied reports that Egypt's recent efforts could ignore the Palestinian demand on settlement freeze in the West Bank. Egypt "wants a solution to all final-status issues, and not to seek a partial one," Abed Rabbo told Voice of Palestine Radio.

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For Family of Slain Activist, No End in Sight for Case
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - November 7, 2010 - 12:00am

HAIFA, Israel — Seven years after an American student, Rachel Corrie, was killed in Gaza by an Israeli military bulldozer she tried to block, becoming a global symbol of the Palestinian struggle, her parents and her older sister sit in an Israeli court in this northern city with two hopes: to confront the men who ran over her and to prove that the army investigation into her death was flawed.

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Anger at Israel flares in Jordan election campaign
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Jamal Halaby - November 7, 2010 - 12:00am

Frustration with the interminable deadlock in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is bleeding over into Jordan, where bitterness at Israel is flowing more freely than ever during campaigning for this week's parliamentary elections. Behind the anger expressed by candidates and voters lies U.S. ally Jordan's greatest fear: that if peacemaking collapses, Israel will try to force it to take in the residents of the West Bank and stand as the Palestinian state. Recent talk by right-wing Israelis about the "Jordanian option" has only fueled the belief here that this is Israel's ultimate plan.

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The Undertaker
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Tishreen
by Ali Jamalo - (Opinion) November 7, 2010 - 12:00am

Jeffery Feltman deserves to be called an undertaker. He has excelled in this profession ever since he was a US Ambassador in Lebanon and he has gotten better at it since he became an Assistant to Secretary Hilary Clinton. ‘Undertaker’ in this sense doesn’t refer to a humanitarian mission to bury dead people, but rather a dirty profession of killing innocent people and burying them alive. In politics an undertaker is a man who imitates the spider in setting traps for its victim. As many people know, Lebanon makes an ideal environment for spiders.

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Window of opportunity for two-state solution closing, Hague warns Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - November 5, 2010 - 12:00am

William Hague warned today that the window of opportunity for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was closing and failure by the two parties to reach agreement would be a "serious setback". Speaking at the end of a two-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, after visiting Jerusalem's Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, the foreign secretary urged Israel to renew its freeze on settlement construction to allow direct talks between the two parties to resume.

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