Obama: Mideast peace bid needed amid region's unrest
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Matt Spetalnick - April 5, 2011 - 12:00am

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday it was more urgent than ever to seize the opportunity to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts even as unrest swept the broader Middle East. Speaking after White House talks with Israeli President Shimon Peres, Obama pressed Israel and the Palestinians to capitalize on the wave of political change in the Arab world and seek to advance their long-stalled peace process. But Obama, whose attempts to broker a peace deal have yielded little since he took office, stopped short of unveiling any new initiative to bring the two sides together.

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Prominent Israelis Will Propose a Peace Plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - April 4, 2011 - 12:00am

A group of prominent Israelis, including former heads of Mossad, Shin Bet and the military, are this week putting forth an initiative for peace with the Arab world that they hope will generate popular support and influence their government as it faces international pressure to move peace talks forward.

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How to Break the Mideast Deadlock
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Aaron David Miller - (Opinion) April 4, 2011 - 12:00am

The Arab-Israeli peace process is frozen solid. A breakthrough would require something far bolder and more imaginative than the president articulating another set of sterile American policy positions. But a bolder proposal — outlined below — has a high risk of failure and may be well beyond the will or capacity of the United States to achieve. Given the current turbulence in the Arab world, the smart money on such a risky venture — or on any peace initiative — would be to wait at least until after U.S. elections in November 2012.

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Make peace between peoples
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The San Francisco Chronicle
by Danny Ayalon - (Opinion) March 30, 2011 - 12:00am

The recent events in the Middle East have been momentous and encouraging. No one who craves a better future for our region can be unimpressed by the resilience shown by those seeking an improved and enlightened future for its people. However, as many instill hope for progress in the Middle East, there are those who are trying to seize the revolutions to further establish their grip on parts of our region. We saw this with the Iranian revolution of 1979, when the short-lived democracy was hijacked by the Islamist theocracy that has brutalized and repressed its people ever since.

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Israelis and Palestinians, take note
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Blog) March 28, 2011 - 12:00am

The past ten days of revolution in the Arab world have been marked by four dramatic developments that could be relevant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its solution. Saudi Arabia led a Gulf Cooperation Council expeditionary force into Bahrain. A coalition of mainly western countries led an armed intervention in Libya upon the request of the Arab League. In Egypt, a referendum overwhelmingly approved a series of constitutional amendments that were supported by the Muslim Brotherhood and the army but opposed by the youth coalition that led the revolution.

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Arab peace initiative is another missed opportunity for Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) March 28, 2011 - 12:00am

Once again, Jerusalem is "closely monitoring" the squabble at the neighbors' - this time, in the form of the bloody clashes in Syria. Is the fall of President Bashar Assad good for the Jews? Could religious extremists replace the minority Alawite regime? What will happen to the separation of forces agreement on the Golan Heights? What will be the new regime's policy concerning a negotiated end to the Arab-Israeli conflict? How will the political furor affect Syria's intimate relations with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah?

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Mighty Israel and its quest to quash Palestinian popular protest
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - (Opinion) March 28, 2011 - 12:00am

"Now that Abdullah Abu Rahma has been released from jail, the Israeli soldiers and the honorable military tribunal judges will have time for Bassem Tamimi." Thus Tamimi, the coordinator of Nabi Saleh's Popular Committee, was introduced to guests who came to congratulate Bil'in resident Abu Rahma on his release after serving 16 months on charges of incitement and organizing illegal demonstrations. Twenty-four hours later, late Thursday morning, Tamimi was arrested.

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Impatient Palestinians eye Arab world in flux
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Mohammed Daraghmeh - March 26, 2011 - 12:00am

With the peace process going nowhere, the threat of new violence increasing and the Palestinians badly divided, people in the West Bank and Gaza are surveying the rapid changes in the rest of the Arab world — and growing impatient with stagnation at home. In Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, officials are quietly working on a plan: Going for statehood without agreement with Israel, bypassing the moribund peace process. First mooted last fall, the notion precedes the Arab revolts but has been lent even greater urgency by them.

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ATFP Deplores Violence, Warns Against Escalation of Conflict
Press Release - Contact Information: Ghaith al-Omari - March 23, 2011 - 12:00am

Washington, DC, March 23 -- The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) has been following the escalating violence between Palestinians and Israel over the recent weeks with growing alarm. ATFP reiterates its unequivocal condemnation of all forms of terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians no matter who the perpetrators or the victims might be and no matter in what cause such actions are rationalized. The particularly indefensible and contemptible killing of children must especially be condemned without reservation.


A MAN, A PLAN
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New Yorker
by David Remnick - (Opinion) March 21, 2011 - 12:00am

Psychobiography in politics is ordinarily a mug’s game. Sometimes, though, an assessment of inherited traits and ideologies can be telling. For years, Israeli and American commentators have been waiting for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to leave behind the right-wing Revisionist ideology of his father, Benzion, a historian of the Spanish Inquisition, and, like Nixon leaving for China, end the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

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