Second Palestinian battalion begins US-funded training
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
September 17, 2008 - 8:00pm

About 500 members of a security force loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas crossed into Jordan on Thursday for U.S. funded training, the second such battalion to do so. Washington wants to train the backbone of a Palestinian gendarmerie that would underpin any future state. The battalion from Abbas's National Security Force will undergo training for four months in police tactics, riot control and human rights, officials said. An official at the Israeli-controlled Allenby Bridge, between the occupied West Bank and Jordan, said the battalion crossed without incident.

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Tough road ahead for Livni
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Jeremy Bowen - September 17, 2008 - 8:00pm

In the end, only a few hundred votes separated Tzipi Livni and Shaul Mofaz. But Ms Livni has won, and now she gets the chance to form a government. The day before the vote, one of her strategists, full of confidence, sat back and predicted that if it was going to be a big victory, he would know by 1730 on the afternoon of polling day. But the winning margin was narrow, and Ms Livni's camp had to wait until the middle of the night to be sure they had it.

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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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The Issue of Five Million Palestinian Refugees
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed - September 15, 2008 - 8:00pm

Talking to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz last week, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas admitted that the refugees represent the main obstacle preventing a peace agreement with Israel. He said that matters are not yet clear; every issue has complicated details for those who would return to the West Bank and Gaza Strip and those whom Israel would agree to return to their land which is today's Israel.

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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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Abbas: Mid-East deal is far off
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC World News
September 11, 2008 - 8:00pm

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said peace talks with Israel have failed to reach any breakthrough, despite nine months of negotiations. "I can't say that even one issue has been agreed upon," Mr Abbas told Israel's Haaretz newspaper. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have met since talks resumed following a US-sponsored summit last November. But Mr Abbas said the process would continue with whoever replaced Israel's outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Mr Olmert has said he will step down after his Kadima party chooses a new leader next week.

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Enough of the Jerusalem Mantra
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Daniel Seidemann - (Opinion) September 10, 2008 - 8:00pm

I was born American. Thirty-five years ago, I chose to become Israeli. My choice in no way reflects a lack of affection for the United States. But patriotism is monogamous: I am an Israeli patriot, and a platonic friend of the land of my birth. I have never voted in a U.S. election and I belong to no U.S. political party. I see myself as an observer of, rather than a participant in, American presidential election politics. But as a Jerusalemite, I do have a stake in the 2008 Presidential race, like it or not.

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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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Darwish to Peres: PA has 'no more to give'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Greer Fay Cashman - September 8, 2008 - 8:00pm

Israelis and Palestinians have never been closer to making strategic decisions than they are today, and at the end of the day, each side wants to win a little more than the other, Sheikh Abdallah Nimr Darwish, founder of the Islamic Movement, told President Shimon Peres on Tuesday. "But the Palestinians have nothing left to offer Israel," he added. Darwish spoke at the traditional Iftar meal for leaders of Israel's Arab communities hosted by President Shimon Peres during Ramadan.

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