Is there a viable strategy here somewhere?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) May 7, 2012 - 12:00am

Last February, at a conference for the defense of Jerusalem in Qatar, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on Arabs to visit East Jerusalem and the mosques on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. The declared objective was to enhance and support the Palestinian claim to East Jerusalem and the Old City and break Israel's "siege" of the city.

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Hopelessness of a two-state solution leads to fresh ideas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Alan Philps - (Opinion) April 27, 2012 - 12:00am

No one is paying much attention to the Palestine issue these days. Coverage in the global media is perfunctory. What used to be a major issue in US-Israeli relations is now relegated to a sideshow by Iran and the Obama administration's focus on getting re-elected without any new Middle Eastern entanglements. As Filippo Grandi, the Commissioner General of UNRWA, the United Nations agency that provides services for Palestinian refugees, put it last week in London: "Over the past seven years I have never seen all the avenues for political progress closed as they are now."

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PM stance on Palestinian contiguity debated
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Herb Keinon - April 27, 2012 - 12:00am

Government officials played down Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s comments in a CNN interview this week expressing a seeming willingness for Palestinian contiguity, saying he was referring to the West Bank, and not necessarily a physical link from it to Gaza. Netanyahu, the officials said, has not publicly articulated a position on what he believes a link or “safe passage” between the West Bank and Gaza should look like in a possible future agreement.

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'Now's the time for peace with the Palestinians'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Steve Linde - (Opinion) April 25, 2012 - 12:00am

Israel has never faced a better opportunity to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians than it has today under the leadership of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, President Shimon Peres told The Jerusalem Post in a pre-Independence Day interview on Tuesday. “I think the Palestinian window is still open,” Peres said. “Everybody makes mistakes in his sayings and doings, but President Abbas is constant in his announced position – for peace, against terror, and for a two-state solution. I think we have never had a wider basis to conclude peace than under his leadership.”

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A Second Response to Benny Morris
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Daniel Levy - (Opinion) April 24, 2012 - 12:00am

There is a certain redundancy to arguing with Benny Morris. The case he makes is easily debunked but the position he represents on rejectionism needs to be taken seriously, given the role that this narrative plays in perpetuating the conflict and the human misery for Palestinians, and not infrequently for Israelis. This piece will focus on that deeper narrative. But first, a little pushback, as Morris can’t be given a free pass on his deceptions.

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Peres to Haaretz: Israel could reach a peace deal with Abbas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yossi Verter - April 23, 2012 - 12:00am

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a worthy and serious partner, and it was certainly possible to reach a peace agreement with him during the past three years, President Shimon Peres told Haaretz. "I am aware that there are other opinions [about whether Abbas can or wants to make peace], but I don't accept them, and I have a little experience," Peres said during an interview last week in the President's Residence in Jerusalem.

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Radical action needed after Oslo's decline
Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In The National - April 20, 2012 - 12:00am

In 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed and the Palestinian Authority was born, the senior Israeli politician Yossi Beilin was a leading advocate for Palestinian self-rule. The accords, and the Authority, were intended to pave the way for permanent solutions on borders, refugees and two-state control.

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Radical action needed after Oslo's decline
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) April 19, 2012 - 12:00am

In 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed and the Palestinian Authority was born, the senior Israeli politician Yossi Beilin was a leading advocate for Palestinian self-rule. The accords, and the Authority, were intended to pave the way for permanent solutions on borders, refugees and two-state control.

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Game changer
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Michael Jansen - (Opinion) April 18, 2012 - 12:00am

While Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas does not intend to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, he has, at long last, admitted that the body, created under the flawed and defunct 1993 Oslo accords, has no authority. Abbas rightly blamed Israel for the failure of the “Oslo process” and said Israel stripped the Palestinian Authority of any “meaningful jurisdiction in the political, economic, territorial and security spheres”.

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Palestinians Restate Demands to Netanyahu
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - April 17, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday, reiterating that for peace talks to resume, Israel must stop settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and accept the 1967 borders as a basis for a two-state solution.

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