West Bank alone could go to polls
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Jumana Al Tamimi - November 23, 2008 - 8:00pm

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas could hold elections in the occupied West Bank alone if Hamas prevents the ballot from taking place in Gaza, an Abbas aide said on Monday. "If Hamas forcibly prevents them from preparing for elections in Gaza, this is not going to stop the elections from being held. We will hold the elections in the West Bank and Hamas will be responsible for preventing the elections in Gaza," senior Abbas adviser Nimer Hammad said.

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ACP to Distribute One Thousand Laptops to Palestinian Students
Press Release - Contact Information: Omar Tuffaha - November 20, 2008 - 1:00am

Washington, DC, Nov. 21 -- On Nov. 20, the American Charities for Palestine (ACP), the Palestinian Ministry of Education, and USAID announced the commencement of distributing 1,000 laptop computers to Palestinian students in the Occupied Territories. The laptops, worth $200,000, were donated by One Laptop per Child in partnership with ACP and delivered with the help of USAID.


Jewish settlers daub 'Muhammad is a pig' on Palestinian mosque
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Times
by David Byers - November 19, 2008 - 8:00pm

An escalating stand-off between the Israeli Army and a group of extremist Jewish settlers encamped illegally in a Palestinian town took a sinister turn today after radicals desecrated a Muslim cemetery and mosque and attacked soldiers. Israel's military, which is trying to force the settlers to leave the property in Hebron, said it had removed the graffiti "Muhammad is a pig" from a local mosque and had cleared the cemetery, in which gravestones were sprayed by radicals with Stars of David.

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Polls show Israel's Likud party leading
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Aron Heller - November 19, 2008 - 8:00pm

A pair of polls published Thursday showed opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu's hardline Likud party leading Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's moderate Kadima party in the run-up to Israel's Feb. 10 elections. The polls also indicated strong support for Netanyahu's hard-line allies. If that support stands through the elections, it would position Netanyahu to put together a hawkish coalition that would likely end peace talks with the Palestinians, at least in their current form.

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Palestinians will need Barack Obama's helping hand
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Yasser Abed Rabbo - November 18, 2008 - 8:00pm

President-elect Barack Obama's defiantly positive campaign for change has inspired hope not only in the millions of Americans who voted for him, but also in the billions of others worldwide who could not. Across the Middle East, as elsewhere, expectations are building that his presidency will herald a new era for America's role in the world.

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Is Obama a Middle East ‘splitter’?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Gideon Rachman - November 17, 2008 - 8:00pm

Historians are sometimes divided into lumpers and splitters. The splitters like to chop problems up into lots of small bits. The lumpers like to link them altogether. Would-be Middle East peacemakers can be categorised in the same way. The lumpers want a “comprehensive peace settlement” that links together all the problems in the region – Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Israel-Palestine, even Iran. The splitters want to deal with all these problems separately.

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New dovish faction shaping up in Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Amy Teibel - November 16, 2008 - 8:00pm

A group of high-profile Israeli politicians, intellectuals and business leaders have banded together to form a new dovish faction ahead of February elections, worried by polls that give hardline opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu a strong chance of winning.

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Settlers Who Long to Leave the West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - November 12, 2008 - 8:00pm

Surrounded by hostility, living on land most of the world wants turned over to Palestinians for a state, they meet quietly in Jewish settlements like this one, plotting the future. But these besieged West Bank settlers, widely viewed as an obstacle to peace, want only one surprising thing: to get out. While the vast majority of settlers vow never to abandon the heart of the historic Jewish homeland — these ancient and starkly beautiful hills whose biblical names are Judea and Samaria — thousands of other settlers say they want to move back to within the pre-1967 borders of Israel.

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Officials deny Bethlehem sweep will target Hamas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP)
November 11, 2008 - 8:00pm

The Palestinian leadership mounted a security operation in Bethlehem on Tuesday similar to those launched in other West Bank towns that have drawn charges of partisanship."The security plan is aimed against those who do not respect the law and is not intended as a basis for carrying out political arrests," Bethlehem security chief Colonel Suleiman Abu Hadid told a news conference. He added that the plan would not involve the deployment of any police reinforcements, unlike in the flashpoint city of Hebron where an additional 600 officers were deployed last month.

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Foreign troops could deploy in West Bank after peace deal
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - November 10, 2008 - 8:00pm

After an Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories within the framework of an overall peace agreement, foreign forces could be stationed there for a specific period, the secretary-general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, told Haaretz in an interview over the weekend in Brussels.

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