When Ehud Meets George
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Daniel Levy - (Opinion) January 4, 2008 - 2:42pm

The finishing touches are being applied to preparations for next week's presidential visit. After more than 2,500 days in the White House, George W. Bush will grace the Holy Land with his presence, and Ehud Olmert can notch up an achievement denied to his predecessor, Ariel Sharon - of hosting an American president. The script for such an occasion almost writes itself. The president will visit all the usual Israeli and Jewish sites of history, heartbreak and heroism, identifying with our suffering and marveling at our achievements.

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Israel’s Quiet War
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Fred Schlomka - (Opinion) January 4, 2008 - 2:41pm

While Ehud Olmert and Abu Mazen were wheeling and dealing at Annapolis, several Israeli government ministries and security agencies were deploying their combined resources in a massive operation aimed at Israel’s southern Negev Desert. While the eyes of the world are on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel is in the middle of a campaign to complete the displacement of Palestinian Arabs who also are Israeli citizens.

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Lurching From Crisis To Crisis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al- Ahram
by Marian Houk - January 4, 2008 - 2:40pm

The Israeli Defence Ministry's programme to punish all Gazans for Qassam missiles fire into Israeli territory is apparently moving into a new phase. A second round of fuel cuts reportedly started on 30 December, with a military-ordered reduction of some 35-43 per cent (depending on what numbers are used as the baseline) in the amount of gasoline that will now be supplied to the Gaza Strip.

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Yo, Anyone Who Fears Iran
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
January 4, 2008 - 2:35pm

THE smart people are getting out of Jerusalem next week. Traffic mayhem is assured as George Bush and his entourage, about 800 souls, guarded by thousands of Israeli police, are whisked about in a fleet of armoured vehicles, complete with a bespoke helicopter brought in to fly the president to Capernaum, in northern Israel, where Jesus chose his apostles.

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Palestinian Pm Assails Israel Over West Bank Raids
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Mohammed Assadi - January 4, 2008 - 2:22pm

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad criticized Israel on Friday for mounting a major military sweep in the West Bank, saying such intervention was ruining a Western-backed internal Palestinian security plan. Hundreds of Israeli troops flooded Nablus on Wednesday, conducting house-to-house searches, detaining at least 6 Palestinians. The move triggered a confrontation with stone-throwing youths in which, hospital officials said, at least 29 people were injured.

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Israeli Operations Kill 9 In Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Jonathan Finer - January 4, 2008 - 2:21pm

Israeli forces launched military operations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank early Thursday, hours before a Katyusha rocket fired from Gaza crashed down harmlessly near the Israeli city of Ashkelon. At least nine Palestinians were killed during Israeli tank and helicopter attacks in Gaza, including five members of a family killed near the central city of Khan Younis, Palestinian officials said.

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Our Violent Presence
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - January 3, 2008 - 5:40pm

There is no Israeli whose presence in the West Bank is neutral. Civilian or armed, soldier or woman settler, resident of a quality-of-life settlement or a nearby outpost, MahsomWatch activist or guest at a settlement, Bezek worker or client at a Palestinian garage. All of them, all of us, are in this Palestinian territory, in the West Bank, because our state occupied it in 1967.

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The Fence Failure
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The American Prospect
by Gershom Gorenberg - January 3, 2008 - 5:14pm

When George W. Bush visits Israel next week, he's reportedly planning to take time off for a visit to the ruins of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is said to have lived and preached. I shouldn't begrudge someone shlepping across the world a couple hours for a private pilgrimage. But if Bush wants to pry time free from meetings in Jerusalem, it would be better spent on a tour of the Israeli separation barrier, a.k.a. fence, a.k.a. wall. Plenty of human rights activists who speak good English (maybe too good for W.) would be happy to guide him.

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Cautious Hope For Peaceful Middle East
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Asia Times
by Kaveh Afrasiabi - January 2, 2008 - 2:34pm

Unlike 2007, a rather bloody year in the history of modern Middle East, 2008 should have a better prospect for peace than at any time since 2001, year zero in the American-declared "global war on terror", assuming that the lame-duck George W Bush administration does not somehow stifle that prospect.

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Gaza Sewage, Water Disaster Looms
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Middle East Times
by Mel Frykberg - January 2, 2008 - 2:31pm

More than 1.4 million Gaza Palestinians are facing an impending health disaster from decaying sewage and water systems that lack vital spare parts, fuel, and maintenance work, due to an Israeli economic siege on the Gaza Strip. "We are a one-generator-failure away from disaster," Michael Bailey, an Oxfam spokesman, told the Middle East Times.

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