The Recent Outbreak Of Violence In Gaza Only Serves Hamas' Enemies
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
(Editorial) January 18, 2008 - 6:34pm

The past week has seen a rapid degeneration from bad to worse in the Gaza Strip, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's vow to continue waging "war" on the besieged territory does not bode well for more than one million civilians who live there. Having already been half-starved into submission by the economic strangulation imposed on them by Israel and the international community, Gazans now find themselves caught between an escalating battle between militants and Israeli forces.

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Hard To Make Friends
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
January 18, 2008 - 6:32pm

DURING half a century of American engagement with the Arab world, American presidents have tended to get nicer to the Arabs towards the end of their term, when they have less to lose at home by doing so. With his Middle East tour, George Bush has stuck to that rule. The difference is that, with America's failure to sort out Iraq or make peace between Israelis and Palestinians or to persuade Muslims that the war on terror is not unfairly directed at themselves, no other president has had to control quite so much damage.

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Hamas Police Force Recruits Women In Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Taghreed El-Khodary - January 18, 2008 - 6:28pm

The policemen of Hamas now have company: since the Islamic group took over here last June it has been recruiting policewomen as well. Since mid-August, 60 women have been accepted into the force. Unlike policemen, the women have not played any role in resisting the latest Israeli incursions, instead working mostly on cases that involve dealing with women, like drugs and prostitution, and helping out at police headquarters and the central jail.

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Israel Closes Vital Gaza Crossings
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Ibrahim Barzak - January 18, 2008 - 6:26pm

Israel sealed all border crossings with the Gaza Strip on Friday, cutting the flow of vital supplies in an attempt to stop Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli border towns. But the rockets kept flying and Israel hit back with airstrikes against a rocket squad, a Hamas government building and a Hamas militia base, killing one militant and two civilians, Hamas said. U.N. officials warned that the Israeli closure of the Gaza crossings would increase hardship in the impoverished territory of 1.4 million Palestinians.

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Bloody Reality Bears No Relation To The Delusions Of This President
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Robert Fisk - (Opinion) January 16, 2008 - 5:28pm

Twixt silken sheets – in a bedroom whose walls are also covered in silk – and in the very palace of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, President George Bush awakes this morning to confront a Middle East which bears no relation to the policies of his administration nor the warning which he has been relaying constantly to the kings and emirs and oligarchs of the Gulf: that Iran rather than Israel is their enemy.

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Holy Land Killing Begins Again As Bush Wraps Up Middle East Visit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Sydney Morning Herald
by Ed O\'loughlin - January 16, 2008 - 5:27pm

AS THE US President, George Bush, wrapped up his first extended Middle East tour, the Holy Land returned to the grim status quo, with violence flaring in Gaza and the West Bank. Only the scale of the killing is in any way remarkable - at least 19 Palestinians in Gaza, including five civilians, and an Ecuadorean labourer working on an Israeli kibbutz. It is the highest daily death toll in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in over a year. In the West Bank a senior leader of the Islamic Jihad group was killed by Israeli troops early yesterday.

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One Hand Clapping
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Middle East Times
(Editorial) January 16, 2008 - 5:25pm

The first thing to say about U.S. President George W. Bush's travels around the region to push the cause of an Israeli-Palestinian peace is that it is extremely welcome: The second thing to say is that it would have been much more welcome had it occurred seven years ago, before 3,000 to 5,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis had lost their lives during the second intifada.

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Faith, Freedom And Bling In The Middle East
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Maureen Dowd - (Opinion) January 16, 2008 - 5:21pm

As a Saudi soldier with a gold sword high-stepped in front of him, President Bush walked slowly beside King Abdullah through the shivery gray mist enveloping the kingdom, following the red carpet leading from Air Force One to the airport terminal. When the two stepped onto the escalator, the president tenderly reached for the king’s hand, in case the older man needed help. He certainly does need help, but not the kind he is prepared to accept.

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Gaza Strike Hardens Hamas Position
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Dan Murphy - January 16, 2008 - 5:20pm

Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas leader widely seen as the strategic mind behind the Islamist movement's successful takeover of the Gaza Strip last summer, struck a defiant tone when asked in an interview last week how long he thinks Hamas can maintain control in the face of an economic blockade and Israeli pressure.

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The Generals Of Professor Rice
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amir Oren - January 15, 2008 - 6:04pm

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the main impetus in the Bush administration for squeezing something out of the 2008 drought year, convinced the president to break from his principle of linkage - the basis of his road map - and skip to the final stage, the final status framework. This is a concession to Palestinian demands, and a further reversal for the Israeli position since Yasser Arafat opened fire in September 2000 and frightened Israel with the possibility that he might declare an independent state unilaterally (the "Magic Melody" scenario).

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