Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton congratulate Livni on Kadima victory
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - September 17, 2008 - 8:00pm

A day after Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni won the Kadima Party leadership primary, the foreign ministry was bombarded with congratulatory phone calls and letters from around the globe. One of the first to congratulate the newly elected chairwoman of the ruling party was U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, with whom Livni had developed a close relationship in recent joint diplomatic efforts with the Palestinians. Another prominent politician to call Livni was U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton, who also offered her congratulations.

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The two-state solution is nearly dead. But there's one last chance to save it
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Jonathan Freedland - (Opinion) September 16, 2008 - 8:00pm

By tonight, the governing party should have a new leader. After a painful summer limping along with an unpopular prime minister - who never came close to matching the popularity of his predecessor - the party will today have the leadership contest and the fresh start it has yearned for.

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As peace talks sputter, Israelis and Palestinians eye Plan B
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - September 14, 2008 - 8:00pm

Over the past two decades of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, deadlines for peace agreements have come and gone with precious few treaties. Now, amid low expectations for an agreement before the expiration of the Bush administration's target for an accord by the end of 2008, voices are growing on both sides advocating abandoning talks on Palestinian statehood if they miss the mark yet again. "We certainly need to think outside the box," says Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator and longtime supporter of peace talks. "The business-as-usual approach hasn't worked."

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Abbas to Haaretz: We will compromise on refugees
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - September 14, 2008 - 8:00pm

Perhaps it was the daytime fast and abstention from smoking during the holy month of Ramadan, and perhaps it was the conversation about the exhausting negotiations with Israel that caused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) to press the white button at least three times in the course of last Wednesday's interview. Sa'id, his personal assistant, enters without a word, pulls out the packet and lights a cigarette for the president. Abu Mazen's relaxed mood does not hint at all the troubles bombarding him from inside and out.

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Overcoming our whirlwinds
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Saliba Sarsar - (Opinion) September 11, 2008 - 8:00pm

Dan Bar-On had a story about how he learned to see things through Palestinian eyes. An Israeli Jew, born in Haifa to refugees who had left Nazi Germany in 1933, Dan was a psychology professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and he had long been interested in seeing his nation live in peace with its Palestinian neighbors. At a certain point back in the mid-1990s, however, he realized, as he told me in a formal interview I conducted with him last year, that "I could not live my life in this region without seeing Palestinians, without feeling their pain."

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In Jerusalem All Politics Isn?t Local
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum
by Sadie Goldman - September 10, 2008 - 8:00pm

The circus that is Jerusalem local politics is back in the headlines with the kick-off of its mayoral race.

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A West Bank Ruin, Reborn as a Peace Beacon
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - September 10, 2008 - 8:00pm

Pessimism is a steady companion these days for advocates of Middle East peace. A lame-duck Israeli government is negotiating with a weak Palestinian leadership in the twilight of an unpopular American administration. Few forecast success. But a quiet revolution is stirring here in this city, once a byword for the extremes of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. In 2002, in response to a wave of suicide bombers from Jenin, Israeli tanks leveled entire neighborhoods.

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Hamas begins stepping out from Jordan?s crosshairs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) September 9, 2008 - 8:00pm

A brief perusal of headlines in the regional media would appear to confirm that, of the two main Palestinian movements, Fateh and Hamas, the latter has recently been the object of the most attention from Israel's neighbors, particularly Egypt and Jordan.

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Palestinian Public Opinion Poll No (29)
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Palestinian Center For Policy And Survey Research
September 8, 2008 - 8:00pm

These are the results of the latest poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip between 28 and 30 August 2008. This period witnessed a relative consolidation of the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip and the release by Israel of about 200 Palestinian prisoners as a gesture to President Mahmud Abbas.

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The 2008 Democratic Party Platform and the Middle East
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy In Focus
by Stephen Zunes - September 4, 2008 - 8:00pm

The excitement over the nomination of Barack Obama as the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party has been tempered by some key foreign policy planks in the 2008 platform, particularly those relating to the greater Middle East region. These positions appear to run counter to Obama's pledge early in the primary race to end the mindset that led to the Iraq War.

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