U.S. intel predicts: Palestinian state to exist by 2030, but not peace with Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amir Oren - December 11, 2012 - 1:00am

A U.S. intelligence report predicts growing conflicts between secular Israelis and the ultra-Orthodox and settlers, with the Palestinians getting a state based on the 1967 borders with land swaps by 2030. The state, however, won't necessarily be formally declared, and the issues of Jerusalem, refugees and the demilitarization of the West Bank might not be solved. The report predicts that with the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq and eventually Afghanistan, support for Israel will remain the last cause for Muslim anti-U.S. sentiments.

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Israeli authorities 'to demolish West Bank road'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 11, 2012 - 1:00am

SALFIT (Ma'an) -- Israeli authorities on Monday notified Palestinian farmers in a northern West Bank village that a road connecting them to their fields will be demolished, locals told Ma'an. Residents of Qarawat Bani Hassan, near Salfit, said Israeli planning officers told them the al-Hurriya (Freedom) road will be demolished in two weeks. Farmers were told to avoid agricultural work in the area.

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No Palestinian state has been created
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Alan Baker - (Opinion) December 11, 2012 - 1:00am

Even as the United Nations has returned to its routine, unproductive agenda, an atmosphere of expectation prevails following the General Assembly resolution granting the Palestinians the status of nonmember observer state. Some even anticipate charges in the International Criminal Court against Israeli leaders and military officers in the expectation that the ICC will accept "Palestine" as a state with the right to present claims.

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Unusual jobs highlight restricted choices of Gaza youth
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Tim Whewell - December 10, 2012 - 1:00am

Newsnight's Tim Whewell talks to two young people's whose jobs highlight the peculiarities of life in the Gaza Strip - Muhammad, who works in the smuggling tunnels into Egypt, and Madeline, who is the only woman in a fishing fleet restricted to trawling the waters inside the Israeli blockade. It is not even dawn in Rafah, at the southern extremity of the Gaza Strip, when Busaina Ismail leans over her sleeping son Muhammad and tries, with difficulty, to rouse him.

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Peace moving further away
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Eitan Haber - (Opinion) December 9, 2012 - 1:00am

There were times when the entire world would "hold its breath" before Egyptian rulers delivered their speeches, thinking they would make some earth-shattering remarks. In Israel, way before the Egyptian leaders spoke, IDF intelligence officers would hand their commanders reports containing the statements they expected the Egyptian leaders would make. The result, in most cases, was quite amusing.

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1947's Zionists, Today's Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by David N. Myers - (Opinion) December 7, 2012 - 1:00am

Sixty-five years ago, the Zionist movement scored the greatest success in its history—recognition on November 29, 1947, by the United Nations General Assembly, of the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine. U.N. General Assembly resolution 181 called for the creation of a Jewish state alongside an Arab State, with Jerusalem as an international protectorate. It was this diplomatic act that brought the State of Israel into existence.

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What exactly is Palestine?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Hugh Naylor - December 6, 2012 - 1:00am

RAMALLAH // Mahmoud Abbas declared that Palestine had a state on his triumphant return from the United Nations, but many Palestinians are asking: what do we have and what do we call it? The Palestinian Authority (PA) president on Sunday lauded Palestine's "historic achievement" of being recognised as a non-member state at the UN.

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Over 20 hurt in Hebron as soldiers clash with PA police
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 6, 2012 - 1:00am

HEBRON (Ma'an) -- More than 20 Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli forces in central Hebron on Thursday afternoon, after a skirmish between Israeli troops and Palestinian police.

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Losing Hope on Israeli-Palestinian Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New Republic
by Leon Wieseltier - (Opinion) December 6, 2012 - 1:00am

LOST CAUSES are not wrong causes, unless winning is the measure of right. The historical victory of an idea reveals nothing about its merit: power has uses for fictions, and the popularity of lies is an ancient feature of human affairs.

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Israel takes a harder line
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Los Angeles Times
(Editorial) December 4, 2012 - 1:00am

When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced that he would seek recognition from the United Nations for a Palestinian state, Israel complained that Abbas should have pursued that objective in face-to-face peace negotiations and warned of grave consequences, threatening to expand

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