Negotiating Until the End
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Ali Ibrahim - (Opinion) September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is in a difficult position. The Palestinian negotiators linked the continuation of direction negotiations with Israel – which were launched with great difficulty and are still at an early stage – with an extension to the partial freeze on settlement construction; something that has not materialized from the Israeli side, despite international pressure, in particular from Washington, who are sponsoring the current negotiations.

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U.N. council endorses report accusing Israel of executions aboard aid flotilla
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Colum Lynch - (Analysis) September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Human Rights Council voted Wednesday to endorse the report of a U.N. fact-finding mission that accused Israeli commandos of summarily executing six passengers on a Turkish aid flotilla last May, among them a 19-year old Turkish-American dual citizen who was shot five times, including once in the face. Upon its release last week, the 56-page report was immediately dismissed by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office as "biased" and "distorted." Israel's deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon characterized the report in a radio interview as "a big lie."

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EU's Ashton to join Middle East peace push
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Jeff Mason, Andrew Quinn - September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) - European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she would depart for the Middle East on Wednesday as diplomatic pressure intensified to save faltering Israel-Palestinian peace talks. "I'm going to the Middle East tonight and and I'll meet (U.S. Middle East peace envoy) George Mitchell when I land tomorrow," Ashton told Reuters in an interview in Washington, adding that she also planned to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

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Netanyahu says Mideast peace talks must go on
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Joseph Nasr - September 28, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday agreed to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at a summit in Paris next month, a joint effort to overcome the threat of their peace talks collapsing. A statement from Netanyahu's office said the prime minister had held phone conversations with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and told them he hoped "positive negotiations" with Abbas would continue.

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Israel flotilla raid could go to int'l court-lawyer
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
September 28, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel's raid on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza could end up as a case before the International Criminal Court (ICC), a lawyer who investigated the May raid for the United Nations Human Rights Council said on Tuesday. The mission investigating the raid was not asked to make any recommendations and did not do so. But the suggestion that the case could end up at the ICC -- to which Israel is not a signatory -- maintains pressure on Israel over the incident.

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Fighting radicalism with reform in Lebanon refugee camps
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
September 27, 2010 - 12:00am

In the sprawling streets of the Burj Brajneh refugee camp, in the heart of Beirut, almost 20,000 people struggle to make a living. Mothers try to feed their children with food vouchers from the United Nations, and families live in ramshackle buildings with few of the basic facilities enjoyed by people in wider Lebanese society. Mohammed Al Shuli's grandfather fled to Lebanon in 1948 from his home in what is now the Israeli city of Acco.

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Obama calls on Arab nations to support peace talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Christi Parsons, Paul Richter - September 24, 2010 - 12:00am

President Obama on Thursday pushed Arab nations to provide more political and financial support for the Middle East peace effort, warning that they should not risk the failure of the latest initiative if they truly seek an independent Palestinian state and stability across the region. Obama deplored efforts — assisted by some Arab and Muslim countries — to isolate or "delegitimize" Israel.

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Olmert urges ‘int’l trusteeship’ for Holy Basin
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
September 24, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel should agree to an international trusteeship in Jerusalem’s Holy Basin, should allow non-Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem to serve as the capital of a Palestinian state, and should offer to solve the Palestinian refugee problem within the framework of the Arab peace initiative, former prime minister Ehud Olmert urges in an op-ed article in today’s Jerusalem Post. “If [Israel] takes a clear stance on these issues and presents them as its position for the negotiations,” Olmert writes, it would “transform the atmosphere” surrounding the direct talks with the Palestinian Authority.

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UNITED NATIONS: Israel's absence during Obama speech draws attention
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - (Blog) September 23, 2010 - 12:00am

President Obama's call Thursday in an address before the U.N. General Assembly for Israel to extend its West Bank construction moratorium got little reaction from the Israeli delegation. That's because they weren't there. As Obama spoke about the importance of supporting U.S.-brokered peace talks, television cameras panned to empty chairs at Israel's U.N. desk.

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The Daily Show is listening to King Abdullah. Is anyone else?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Tom A. Peter - September 23, 2010 - 12:00am

"hipness" points count in politics, the international standing of Jordan’s King Abdullah II is about to go through the roof: Tonight he'll be appearing on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” And King Abdullah is pretty cool to begin with. He’s married to Queen Rania, one of People Magazine’s 50 most beautiful people. Before becoming king, he appeared as an extra on Star Trek. An amateur race-car driver, he also personally drove President Barack Obama to the airport when he visited Jordan prior to being elected. Obama later joked: “I won't tell you how fast [Abdullah] was going.”

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