The hundred years' war
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
(Editorial) January 8, 2009 - 1:00am

WITH luck, the destructive two-week battle between Israel and Hamas may soon draw to an end. But how long before the century-long war between Arabs and Jews in Palestine follows suit? It is hard to believe that this will happen any time soon. Consider: Israel’s current operation, “Cast Lead”, marks the fourth time Israel has fought its way into Gaza. It almost captured Gaza (behind a pocket containing a young Egyptian army officer called Gamal Abdul Nasser) in 1948, in the war Israelis know as their war of independence.

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ANALYSIS-Gaza crisis defers dispute over Abbas presidency
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Alistair Lyon - January 8, 2009 - 1:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose original four-year term expires on Friday, faces a legitimacy challenge that Israel's Gaza war has only postponed. How it plays out will affect Abbas's ability to pursue peace talks with Israel. These have so far proved fruitless, earning him only derision from Hamas, which preaches armed resistance. The Israeli onslaught on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip has temporarily eclipsed the dispute between Abbas's secular Fatah faction and its Islamist rivals over whether he must quit now.

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United Nations Security Council Resolution 1860
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from United Nations News Service
January 8, 2009 - 1:00am

SECURITY COUNCIL CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE, DURABLE, FULLY RESPECTED CEASEFIRE IN GAZA LEADING TO FULL WITHDRAWAL OF ISRAELI FORCES Resolution 1860 (2009) Adopted by 14 in Favour, Abstention by United States; Also Calls for Unimpeded Humanitarian Assistance, Welcomes Egyptian Initiative

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UN rejects IDF claim Gaza militants operated from bombed-out school
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar, Amos Harel, Amira Hass, Avi Issacharoff, Anshel Pfeffer - January 7, 2009 - 1:00am

The United Nations on Wednesday denied Israel Defense Forces claims that there were Palestinian militants in the Gaza school bombed by Israel on Tuesday. Christopher Gunness of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said the organization is 99.9 percent certain there were no militants or military activity in its school. That does not necessarily contradict Israel's claim that the militants were operating close by, Gunness said.

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For Battered Gazans, Few Places Left to Hide
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Reyham Abdel Kareem, Sudarsan Raghavan - January 7, 2009 - 1:00am

It was shortly after noon Tuesday when Intisar Sultan walked through the clusters of dirty children and fatigued adults, leaving behind a U.N. school that had been turned into a refuge for families hoping to escape the fighting around them. She walked out its doors without her son, Abdullah, 19, who had died along with two cousins hours earlier in an Israeli airstrike that hit the school in Gaza City. They had been returning to bed from the bathroom.

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Unintended Consequences Pose Risks for Mideast Policy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Glenn Kessler - January 7, 2009 - 1:00am

President-elect Barack Obama will inherit a perilous situation in the Middle East, with Israel under increasing pressure to halt its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, key Arab leaders close to the United States greatly weakened and the Hamas militant group earning resurgent popularity in the region. After days of studied silence on the Gaza conflict, Obama promised yesterday "to hit the ground running" on achieving a broad Middle East peace deal.

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Selective memory, conflict chronology
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Daoud Kuttab - (Opinion) January 7, 2009 - 1:00am

A much repeated Arab saying dealing with conflicts states: the initiator [of a conflict] is the wrong one. So if one is trying to figure out who is wrong in the current round of violence in Gaza, all one has to do is figure out who started it. But the moment one begins this search, one finds oneself in a more complicated, bind, namely figuring out what is the starting point, time-wise.

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How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Avi Shlaim - January 7, 2009 - 1:00am

The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders".

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Transcript: Stephen Hadley
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Wall Street Journal
by John D. McKinnon - (Interview) January 7, 2009 - 1:00am

The Journal's John McKinnon sat down with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley at his office in the West Wing. They talked about the situation in Gaza, the U.S. relationship with Russia, Iraq and more in an interview previewing a valedictory speech Mr. Hadley plans to deliver Wednesday. Below is an edited transcript of the interview. * * * The Wall Street Journal: Talk a little about the challenges, as well as the opportunities, that the next administration is going to face.

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Rafah offensive looms despite ceasefire talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Mitchell Prothero - January 7, 2009 - 1:00am

Israeli planes dropped leaflets over the Rafah refugee camp last night warning residents within two kilometres of the Egyptian border to flee their homes by eight this morning in anticipation of a massive armoured invasion, said residents, who began to leave immediately. The threat came at about the same time as an announcement that Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials – who do not represent the Hamas militants – appeared to agree to an Egyptian-French proposal for a ceasefire to end the 12-day conflict in the Gaza Strip.

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