' Anything Is Possible'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al- Ahram
by Saleh Al-naami - March 18, 2008 - 6:54pm

Just two weeks after Israel began its bloody incursions into the Gaza Strip Israeli-Palestinian negotiations resumed today under American auspices. Despite repeated decisions by the Israeli government to step up settlement and Judaisation activities in the West Bank, and a week following the attack on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, and the two sides are meeting against the backdrop of an un- announced truce that, with the exception of minor violations, appears to be holding.

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Talking Like Meretz, Behaving Like The Likud
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) March 17, 2008 - 6:50pm

Judging by his declarations, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert could have run tomorrow for the Meretz party's leadership. Judging by the behavior of his government in the territories, he could return to Likud.

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Rendering The Pa Irrelevant
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) March 17, 2008 - 6:45pm

Although the calm in Gaza did not last for more than a few days it marks a very significant development in the ongoing power struggle between Israel, Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

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Shifting Towards Israel?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Star
by Oakland Ross - (Opinion) March 17, 2008 - 6:43pm

A United Nations panel voted overwhelmingly this month to condemn Israel for a recent armed incursion in the Gaza Strip that claimed more than 120 lives, many of them civilian. Thirty-three member countries of the 47-seat UN Human Rights Council endorsed the resolution, which accused Israel of war crimes in its ongoing battles against Palestinian militants in Gaza. Those in favour of censuring the Jewish state included China, India and Russia. Thirteen countries abstained, among them seven European governments.

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Uncritical Merkel Gets Red Carpet Treatment In Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Speigel International
by Ralf Beste, Ralf Neukirch And Christoph Schult - March 17, 2008 - 6:42pm

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has become Israel's staunchest ally in Europe. This week, the country has pulled out all the stops to welcome the German leader. Back home, though, many wish Merkel would finally speak up about Israeli excesses in the Gaza Strip.

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Annapolis's Fading Hope
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
(Opinion) March 10, 2008 - 5:29pm

The Annapolis peace conference last November was a good moment for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She seemed to be getting serious, finally, about using American diplomacy to push for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement whose basic parameters are understood by everyone -- but which requires U.S. follow-through to make it happen.

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Heart Of Darkness
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum
by M.J. Rosenberg - (Opinion) March 7, 2008 - 6:35pm

This is one of those times when the Israeli-Palestinian situation seems to be in a free fall. Yesterday’s terror attack at a Jerusalem yeshiva followed the Gaza incursion which followed the shelling of Sderot and now Ashkelon. It is becoming hard even to recall the few years, only a decade ago, when Israeli-PLO security cooperation had reduced terror in Israel to virtually zero and Israeli bargain hunters and day trippers flooded the Arab towns of the West Bank every weekend. And yet here we are.

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'this May Be The Last Chance'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gidi Weitz And Meron Rapoport - (Interview) March 6, 2008 - 7:39pm

Yasser Abed Rabbo is worried and one of the reasons for this becomes immediately apparent when we meet: An armed guard escorts him into his office on the third floor of a building in Ramallah midday on Saturday. "Who is he protecting you from - the Israelis or Hamas?" we ask. "From Hamas," he says without hesitating.

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Under Pressure, Abbas Says He’ll Talk Peace, But Actual Dialogue May Be Remote
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Helene Cooper, Isabel Kershner - March 6, 2008 - 7:20pm

After coming under heavy pressure from the United States, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said Wednesday that he intended to resume negotiations with Israel on a peace plan. But he did not say when he would return to talks, and he is under political pressure at home not to do so if the Palestinian death toll continues to rise from Israeli attacks on Gaza.

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Palestinian Drag Queens At Odds With Nearly Everyone
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from McClatchy News
by Dion Nissenbaum - March 5, 2008 - 7:47pm

His friends call him "The Bride." This night, he was standing behind a storefront art-gallery window in a bloodied wedding dress. His face was ghostly, and he was clutching a large rock in his right hand. A small crowd had gathered on a south Tel Aviv street as The Bride opened his mouth and began to sing — in Arabic. To be more accurate, The Bride was lip-synching the words of a political anthem by one of Lebanon's best-known divas.

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