Peace Based on Two States | The American Task Force on Palestine

Editorial: Trying again
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

It has taken Herculean efforts by the Obama administration to bring Israel and the Palestinian Authority together for direct talks, including a diplomatic sleight of hand. Indeed, Israelis and Palestinians are entering the talks next month based on different working assumptions.

How to bolster the coming Mideast peace talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

When Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the US had invited the leaders of Israel and the Palestinians to resume direct peace talks next week, the secretary of State did not mince words about the obstacles to success. “The enemies of peace will keep trying to defeat us and to derail these talks,” she said Aug. 20. That is why the negotiations will need “actions by all sides” to support the process.

Peace talks are doomed before they even begin
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

In theory, the premise of the direct talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis is almost utopian. According to the brief, released by the Quartet — the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — the negotiations would last for one year and are supposed to "resolve all final status issues".

Israelis, Palestinians feud ahead of direct talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli and Palestinian leaders sparred on Monday over Jewish settlements and Israeli calls for security guarantees before the launch of Quartet-sponsored direct peace talks in Washington next week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement he would demand any Palestinian state established under a peace deal be demilitarised. But he said he was not laying down any terms for the talks set to convene on Sept. 2.

Mideast talks offer promise, peril for Obama
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico
by Carol E. Lee, Laura Rozen, Ben Smith - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement Friday of new direct Middle East peace talks will renew the sense of opportunity that had faded as the regional stalemate hardened. But the talks also renew the political peril for President Barack Obama, who once again is in the position of pledging progress that's easier to promise than to deliver.

Negotiations lack clear terms of reference
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

The recent US-led efforts to resume direct talks, that ended with the two sides agreeing to renew direct negotiations, reminded many observers of US efforts to establish a peace process and Palestinian-Israeli negotiations in the early 1990s, then described as "constructive ambiguity".

Where these negotiations could be useful
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

The resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that is projected for September 2 in Washington serves a number of useful purposes. Sadly, none of them is directly connected to the effort to "resolve all final status issues" trumpeted last Friday in statements by the Quartet and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Israel's Netanyahu scores big victory with direct peace talks – for now
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - August 22, 2010 - 12:00am

Savoring the diplomatic victory of renewed direct peace talks announced last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet today that a peace treaty with the Palestinians would be "a difficult thing, but it is possible."

Mideast talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
August 22, 2010 - 12:00am

When Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu come face to face for dinner and talks in Washington, we know where they’re coming from. They will meet a decade after the last real final-status talks, 20 months after the last direct talks and after around three months of largely futile indirect negotiations.

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