Abbas Turns To Russia For Help
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Middle East Times
by Sana Abdallah - April 18, 2008 - 6:25pm

As fighting continues to rage in the Gaza Strip and progress bogs down in the U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations with Israel, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has turned to Russia for help. Abbas was in Moscow Thursday calling to convene a conference in the Russian capital "as soon as possible" because the Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations that were re-launched at Annapolis in November were not moving forward.

»

Carter Calls Israel Treatment Of Palestinians A Crime
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Jeffrey Fleishman - April 18, 2008 - 6:17pm

Former President Carter told a university audience here Thursday that the treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military was "a crime" but that there were "officials in Israel quite willing to meet with Hamas" and that may happen "in the near future."

»

Palestinian Official Says Talks With Israelis Yield Little
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - April 18, 2008 - 6:17pm

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister on Thursday offered an unusually bleak assessment of the negotiations with Israel and said President Mahmoud Abbas would seek more active American intervention when he meets with President Bush in Washington this month. Riad Malki, the foreign minister and minister of information in the West Bank-based government, told the Foreign Press Association here that the talks on the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had so far yielded “no results.”

»

No Peace Without Hamas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Mahmoud Al- Zahar - (Opinion) April 17, 2008 - 6:08pm

President Jimmy Carter's sensible plan to visit the Hamas leadership this week brings honesty and pragmatism to the Middle East while underscoring the fact that American policy has reached its dead end. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acts as if a few alterations here and there would make the hideous straitjacket of apartheid fit better.

»

Brothers At Bay
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
(Analysis) April 17, 2008 - 6:05pm

Egypt's government battles with the Muslim Brotherhood

»

Gaza Op Possible After Bush Visit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Herb Keinon - April 17, 2008 - 5:59pm

There is a heightened sense in the security establishment that a broad-scale ground incursion inside the Gaza Strip is necessary this summer to deal a severe blow to Hamas's infrastructure, sources in Jerusalem said Wednesday, following the death of three soldiers in a Gaza ambush.

»

Heavy Fighting In Gaza Casts Doubt On Egyptian-led Talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
April 17, 2008 - 5:56pm

Gaza's worst day of violence in a month, in which at least 20 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers died, appeared to jeopardize Egypt's efforts to mediate a Middle East cease-fire. Wednesday's death toll was the highest since a broad Israeli military offensive in early March that killed more than 120 Gazans, including dozens of civilians. Since then, Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers appeared to be honoring an informal truce, though punctuated with Palestinian rocket attacks, some Israeli airstrikes and minor border skirmishes.

»

Palestinian Toll Rises After Day Of Violence
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Tobias Buck - (Opinion) April 17, 2008 - 5:43pm

Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant and a teenager on Thursday during a raid into the occupied West Bank, a day after 17 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and three Israeli soldiers, were killed in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Palestinian medical and security officials said the militant, a member of Islamic Jihad, and the 16-year-old youth were shot by soldiers who surrounded a house where gunmen were believed to have been hiding in Qabatiya refugee camp near the city of Jenin.

»

The Controversy Surrounding Carter And Meshaal's Meeting
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Tariq Alhomayed - (Opinion) April 16, 2008 - 6:05pm

Huge controversy surrounds former US president Jimmy Carter's meeting with Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal. Carter has stated that during his meeting with Hamas's leader in Damascus; he will strive to convince him to accept a peaceful solution with Israel and Fatah.

»

Complex Regional Rivalry Muddying The Waters
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) April 16, 2008 - 6:01pm

The tension between Israel, Syria and Lebanon has carried indirect negative consequences for Palestinians. Even though it is correct to say that at the moment there is no serious or promising peace process between the Palestinians and Israelis to be disrupted, the tension, on the one hand, and Syria and its regional alliances on the other, can play an important role in influencing the domestic Palestinian situation as well as Palestinian-Israeli relations.

»


American Task Force on Palestine - 1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 725, Washington DC 20006 - Telephone: 202-262-0017