Israeli And Palestinian Leaders Meet To Ease Tensions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Steven Erlanger - December 28, 2007 - 4:19pm

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, met here on Thursday to try to dispel the tensions of recent days, and they recommitted themselves to refrain from acts that would prejudice a final peace treaty while they try to negotiate one, officials from both sides said.

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Glimmers Of Mideast Peace Rise From Ashes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Star
by Oakland Ross - December 28, 2007 - 3:47pm

Where would the Middle East be without another war? No one knows, because every passing year seems to bring with it a new armed conflict, and 2007 was no exception, producing a brief but bloody outbreak of fraternal killing that has sharply divided some 3 million Palestinian people, while plunging the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip into even greater depths of misery. Paradoxically, however, the five-day shootout that splintered Palestinians this past June also ignited the first glimmers of peace this region has known in seven years.

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Palestinian Aid: Where Will It Go?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bbc News
December 18, 2007 - 12:25pm

As donors meet in Paris to pledge aid to the Palestinian Authority, BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy explains the steps being taken to make sure the money will reach those who need it most. The idea is simple - to use a massive injection of outside aid to consolidate the fledgling peace process launched in Annapolis in November. But how will the aid get to those who need it? And how will it be spent?

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Ehud The Semi-believer
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The American Prospect
by Gershom Gorenberg - (Analysis) December 5, 2007 - 4:49pm

Ehud Olmert has begun to fascinate me. Don't misunderstand: I am completely innocent of ever voting for him. I have no intent of committing such an act in the future. Had fate not put me in a country of which Olmert is prime minister at a moment that might be seized by someone else, an actual leader, to make peace, my interest in him would be purely as a literary figure, a character. I don’t mean that he is a tragic hero; precisely the point is that he lacks grandeur. He is Willy Loman with a vision: a glad-handing hack politician who was ambushed one day by a truth.

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After Annapolis, Abbas Faces Hamas Challenge
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Mohammed Assadi And Adam Entous - (Analysis) November 30, 2007 - 5:09pm

A U.S.-backed push for a future Palestinian state hinges on President Mahmoud Abbas doing what may seem impossible -- getting Hamas Islamists to give up the Gaza Strip and disarm. Abbas has done little to explain how he expects to achieve such a feat, either through new elections or militarily. He and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert launched their peoples' first formal peace talks in seven years this week with the goal of forging a deal next year to create a state in Gaza and the West Bank, together home to 4 million Palestinians.

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Keep The Cynics At Bay
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Daniel Levy - (Commentary) November 28, 2007 - 4:02pm

Theories abound as to why an Annapolis conference and why now. Jerry Seinfeld would be excused for thinking that this is all a personal conspiracy against him - his visit to Israel was dominating the headlines until Annapolis came along. In fact some in the Israeli media have been drawing a rather unflattering analogy: the Annapolis conference resembles a Seinfeld episode - it's about nothing. Yada yada yada.

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Rice’s Turnabout On Mideast Talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Elisabeth Bumiller - November 26, 2007 - 12:37pm

At President Bush’s first National Security Council meeting in January 2001, he announced that he did not want to be drawn into the shattered Middle East peace process, people at the meeting recalled, because he believed that former President Bill Clinton had pushed so hard for an Israeli-Palestinian accord that he made the situation worse.

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Israel, Palestine, Crab Cakes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Roger Cohen - (Opinion) November 19, 2007 - 4:20pm

I would like to invest hope in the Annapolis Middle East peace conference, or meeting, or parley, or whatever the term is. Really, I would. The 59-year battle for the same land of Zionist and Palestinian national movements has not been good for anyone.

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Last Call For A Two-state Solution
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from International Herald Tribune
by Immanuel Wallerstein - (Opinion) November 8, 2007 - 3:32pm

The prevailing worldwide view of how to resolve politically the conflict of two nationalisms in Israel/Palestine is the so-called two-state solution - the creation of two states, Israel and Palestine, within the boundaries of the onetime British Mandate of Palestine. Actually, this position is not at all new. One might argue that it was the prevailing worldwide position throughout the 20th century.

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Gaza’s Reflection In A Foul Threat
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Steven Erlanger - November 8, 2007 - 3:20pm

Fahmi al-Abrak, 70, was at home on March 27 when a lagoon of human waste broke through its sand embankment and hurtled downhill, inundating this poor village of Bedouins in northern Gaza. “It rose to here in 15 seconds,” he said, pointing to a discolored line on the walls, four feet above ground. Five people were drowned when the overflow pool for a lake of water and human waste failed in March. Residents of Umm al Nasser pulled belongings from their homes after the wave of sewage struck their village in March.

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