Building Momentum For Peace
In Print by Ziad Asali - The Washington Times (Opinion) - December 12, 2007 - 1:00am

In the wake of the resuscitation of peace talks on the Middle East achieved at the Annapolis meeting, security issues will be among the most crucial to building on this momentum.

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Just Another Forgotten Peace Summit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Tamar Hermann, Ephraim Yaar - December 11, 2007 - 1:49pm

Many assume that if the Israeli decision-makers were to openly change their position on the conflict and its resolution, the public would throng after them en masse and support an agreement. The present survey, like earlier surveys we conducted, shows that this assumption is very flimsy and that people are not hurrying to get on the Olmert government's peace train.

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The Pro-israel Consensus Shifts
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum
by M.J. Rosenberg - (Opinion) December 11, 2007 - 1:36pm

Good news. Some of the more conservative American Jewish institutions are coming around to acceptance of the two-state solution, ending the occupation, and sharing Jerusalem. It’s about time. The overwhelming majority of Israelis and Jewish Americans favor those positions and eventually the more status quo-oriented organizations had to catch up—especially now that the Israeli government asserts that it finally has a genuine Palestinian partner.

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Problem And Hope
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Hussein Shobokshi - (Opinion) December 5, 2007 - 4:58pm

The troubled Palestinian situation has reached an alarming deadlock with the passage of time, while the chasm continues to widen between Hamas in Gaza on one hand, and government authority and the PLO in the West Bank on the other.

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Darkness Surrounds Spotlight On Peace Talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by William Fisher - December 5, 2007 - 4:54pm

Most of those representing Middle East and North African nations at the Nov. 27 conference appear to endorse the idea of a "two-state solution" to the decades-old conflict: a separate and contiguous Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel. But Arab delegates to Annapolis -- including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen -- have had little to say about the nature of the state that may emerge from negotiations set to begin soon between Israel and the Palestinians.

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Ehud The Semi-believer
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The American Prospect
by Gershom Gorenberg - (Analysis) December 5, 2007 - 4:49pm

Ehud Olmert has begun to fascinate me. Don't misunderstand: I am completely innocent of ever voting for him. I have no intent of committing such an act in the future. Had fate not put me in a country of which Olmert is prime minister at a moment that might be seized by someone else, an actual leader, to make peace, my interest in him would be purely as a literary figure, a character. I don’t mean that he is a tragic hero; precisely the point is that he lacks grandeur. He is Willy Loman with a vision: a glad-handing hack politician who was ambushed one day by a truth.

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Two States Or One? Time To Choose
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by John V. Whitbeck - (Opinion) December 4, 2007 - 2:24pm

Almost immediately after the hollow show in Annapolis, a ray of hope has appeared from an unexpected source — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In an interview published on Nov. 29 in the Israeli daily Haaretz, he declared, “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.”

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Pray For Success, Because Israel Will Pay The Price Of Annapolis Failure
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gershon Baskin - (Opinion) December 4, 2007 - 2:22pm

The Annapolis process is on its way. This week the permanent status negotiations will formally commence. On December 17 the international community will be convening in Paris to launch the second pillar of the process by committing hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuilding the Palestinian economy and supporting Palestinian institution development. Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayed together with Israeli and Palestinian security officials are already deeply engaged in beginning to implement the Palestinian obligations of the Road Map.

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Peace Talks Back From The Dead
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Speigel International
by Ralf Beste, Christoph Schult , Bernhard Zand - December 4, 2007 - 2:16pm

Peace in the Middle East has been but a faint glimmer on the horizon since the 2000 Camp David talks failed. But now, both the Israelis and Palestinians say they are once again committed to reaching an agreement. But it might depend on their neighbors. A Palestinian member of the Fatah Movement watches the Annapolis summit on television last week.

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Policy Surge Key To Mideast Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Boston Globe
by H.d.s. Greenway - (Opinion) December 4, 2007 - 2:06pm

IT OFTEN takes electric shock treatment to get the Middle East off its dead center of inertia. The lightning success of the first Gulf war in 1991 produced just that, unsettling all the old presumptions.

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