Hamas Casts Shadow Over Peace Talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Karin Laub - December 3, 2007 - 4:04pm

Hamas is casting a long shadow over Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Although weakened by harsh economic sanctions and feeling more isolated after last week's Mideast peace conference in the U.S., the Islamic militants retain a tight hold on Gaza and have the power to disrupt future negotiations with increasingly deadly rocket attacks on Israel. The Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. leaders haven't let on whether they'll confront, co-opt or try to ignore Hamas, while deepening divisions between ideologues and pragmatists make the group more unpredictable.

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No More Time To Waste
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Ami Ayalon - (Opinion) November 30, 2007 - 6:04pm

A motley coalition of cynics and extremists were quick to write off the Annapolis peace conference as a waste of time. The best way for Israel to prove them wrong is to show that it knows there is no more time to waste.

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Israel Risks Apartheid-like Struggle If Two-state Solution Fails, Says Olmert
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Rory Mccarthy - November 30, 2007 - 5:38pm

Israel's prime minister issued a rare warning yesterday that his nation risked being compared to apartheid-era South Africa if it failed to agree an independent state for the Palestinians. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Ehud Olmert said Israel was "finished" if it forced the Palestinians into a struggle for equal rights.

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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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Can Hope Triumph Over Mideast Experience?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from McClatchy News
by Dion Nissenbaum, Warren P. Strobel - November 29, 2007 - 5:01pm

The Wednesday morning newspapers trumpeting the latest fresh start toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians hadn't hit American doorsteps when the first crude Qassam rocket of the day soared out of the Gaza Strip and into southern Israel. Before lunch, Palestinian Authority police in the West Bank were using truncheons to break up angry mourners trying to bury a demonstrator who was killed a day earlier while protesting the new peace initiative.

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Annapolis Talks Prompt Much Doubt, A Few Jokes, In Mideast
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Ellen Knickmeyer, Scott Wilson - November 29, 2007 - 4:55pm

A day after their leaders announced a new push for peace, Israelis and Palestinians returned Wednesday to a familiar and deadly routine, deeply skeptical over the timetable set for the talks and whether an end to the conflict is achievable at all in the current political climate. In cafes and blogs in the Arab world, the Annapolis conference prompted little more than wisecracks. Commentators made much of a linguistic coincidence: In Arabic, "ana polis" means "I am the police."

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Practical Steps Beyond Annapolis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Center For Strategic & International Studies
by Haim Malka - (Commentary) November 28, 2007 - 3:37pm

Israeli and Palestinian leaders seeking to resolve their differences in Annapolis may as well meet on the moon. Beyond the wide gaps on the core issues, the Annapolis framework ignores the harsh reality that Hamas is shut out of the process while poised to violently derail the entire effort. It is based on wishful thinking that so-called moderate Palestinian forces will be strong enough to overpower hardliners and enforce a final agreement. Though it has positive elements, the strategy is likely to fail. But progress is possible, and still within reach.

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Gaza's Bleak Reality
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - November 27, 2007 - 2:05pm

Tzipi Livni says the world can be divided into two: The good guys, who came to Annapolis, the ones who want to make peace - and the bad guys, who oppose the conference and want to sabotage peace efforts. According to the foreign minister, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and his friends in the Ramallah government belong to the good guys. The Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, belongs to the bad guys.

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Gaza Fears Israeli Push To Smash Hamas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald Macintyre - November 27, 2007 - 1:40pm

Big Israeli armoured bulldozers, guarded by a stationary escort of tanks and armoured personnel carriers half-hidden in the adjacent sandbanks, were operating all along the exposed walk south on the Palestinian side of the hi-tech Erez terminal separating Gaza from Israel yesterday.

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4 Main Issues That Divide Israel, Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from McClatchy News
by Dion Nissenbaum - November 27, 2007 - 1:35pm

The clock is winding down on yet another U.S. president who's trying to broker an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has outlasted 10 of his predecessors and will be 60 years old on May 14, Israel's 60th birthday. The Bush administration has left the issue on the back burner for six years to concentrate on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has now invited Arab, Israeli and world leaders for a day of Middle East peace talks in Annapolis, Md., on Tuesday.

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