Even Einstein couldn't think of a peace plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald MacIntyre - (Opinion) March 20, 2012 - 12:00am

Given that she had had a two-year affair with the married Albert Einstein when she was 23 and he was 44, and that she was a Jew desperate to escape an Austria overrun by the Nazis, what resounds down the years about the letter Betty Neumann sent to Einstein in America is its restraint and delicacy. Writing to the already world famous scientist in German two months after Hitler's tanks had rolled into Vienna, Miss Neumann, by now in her mid-thirties, formally addresses her former lover – now installed at Princeton University – as "Highly Esteemed Herr Professor".

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Close encounters of the unwanted kind
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Avi Issacharoff - March 19, 2012 - 12:00am

"At the demonstration today in Kafr a-Dik, I noticed looks and finger-pointing from the shabab (nickname for young Palestinians ) that made me feel some uncomfortable" wrote an Israeli leftist activist recently, referring to a West Bank protest last month. "There was some 'accidental' touching, and some incidents in which people called me a 'slut'...it was a very unpleasant experience," the activist wrote to her friends at Anarchists Against the Wall, which holds pro-Palestinian protests at Kafr a-Dik and other places in the West Bank.

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Decisions in the Interregnum in Palestine and Israel
In Print by Ziad Asali - The Huffington Post (Opinion) - March 19, 2012 - 12:00am

The year 2011 will go down in history as the year when the two-state solution went into deep freeze. Yet even during this hibernation there is much that can, and indeed must, be done to prevent an even graver crisis.

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This conflict has no military solution
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ephraim Sneh - (Opinion) March 19, 2012 - 12:00am

We are in a period of loss of confidence in the peace process, when the chances of reaching a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appear distant. Now, again, we hear Palestinian voices calling for a return to violent struggle. This seems like an appropriate time to review the history of violent clashes between the two sides--and their outcome.

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Planning beyond the possible
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gershon Baskin - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

In October 1992, a year before the Oslo agreement was signed, I initiated a series of “Track II” talks in London between a group of Israeli security experts and their Palestinian counterparts. The Palestinian delegation was composed mostly of PLO representatives, with whom it was illegal for Israelis to meet face-to-face at the time.

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It’s Not Iran
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process, as we have known it since the 1993 signing of the Oslo accords, essentially died more than three years ago with the demise of the final status talks between then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Whatever happens in the months ahead between Israel and Iran or between the United States and Iran will not directly affect a non-existent peace process.

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Yair Lapid: Palestinians not ready to make peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gil Hoffman - March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

Journalist turned politician Yair Lapid blamed the Palestinians for the failure to reach a breakthrough in the peace process in a speech on Monday at Tel Aviv University. Lapid distanced himself from politicians on the Left who have blamed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for the diplomatic stalemate. “I don’t like the tendency to blame the Israeli side,” Lapid said. “Most of the blame belongs to the Palestinian side, and I am not sure that they as a people are ready to make peace with us.”

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Top U.S. army official: Mideast peace stalemate endangers American interests in region
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amir Oren - March 7, 2012 - 1:00am

During an annual briefing Tuesday in the U.S. Congress, Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, head of the Central Command, issued a warning about a continued impasse in the Israel-Palestine conflict. He said that the political awakening in the Arab world has caused regimes in the region to be more attentive than ever to the emotions of their populations. The current stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians, he declared, cannot continue; what is needed is the renewal of an Israeli-Arab drive for peace based on a two-state solution.

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Jordan FM hears Palestinian 'no' to renewed talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
March 7, 2012 - 1:00am

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian leaders have told Jordan's visiting foreign minister they will not resume Mideast peace talks without an Israeli settlement freeze. Jordan's Nasser Judeh explored the possibility of resuming talks in a meeting Wednesday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In January, Jordan hosted low-level Israeli-Palestinian talks that broke down in acrimony. Staunchly pro-Washington, Jordan has considerable sway as one of the Palestinians' most important allies.

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The One-State Problem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from International Herald Tribune
by Shmuel Rosner - (Blog) March 6, 2012 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM — “Israel/Palestine and the One-State Solution,” a student-run conference held at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government last weekend, achieved its goal before it even began. By bringing undeserved attention to an impractical idea, it drew enough wrath to raise its own profile. The one-state solution is an angering concept, and the gathering was an angering event.

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