Fayyad concedes PA tortured Hamas detainees
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
(Editorial) January 5, 2010 - 1:00am

Bethlehem – Ma'an – Caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad implicitly admitted in a report published on Sunday that Palestinian Authority security forces have tortured Hamas detainees over the past two years. An Associated Press report on the subject, citing interviews with Hamas inmates, rights activists, Hamas officials and Fayyad himself, said that most torture had ended in October. Fayyad’s comments, however, amounted to the first time a senior PA official conceded that abuses were committed by the security forces, many of which are trained by the US, Russia, and other world powers.

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Hamas holds out olive branch to Fatah
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Erin Cunningham - (Opinion) January 5, 2010 - 1:00am

GAZA CITY // Hamas’s announcement this week that it is on the verge of signing a reconciliation deal with Fatah may be a reaction to rising sentiment on Gaza’s streets – and even among its own ranks – that it is time for the Islamist movement to reconcile with its secular rivals in the West Bank. The group’s political chief, Khaled Meshaal, based in Damascus, said this week in Saudi Arabia that his movement is in the final stages of reconciliation with Fatah, after three years of division split the Palestinian territories into two enclaves run by the respective movements.

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Saudi Arabia…Mishal and the Removal of Doubts
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Tariq Alhomayed - (Opinion) January 5, 2010 - 1:00am

Did [Hamas chief] Khalid Mishal arrive in Riyadh to announce the selling of Iran, or did he come to sell us another illusion? Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal described his talks with Mishal as being "focused on removing doubts about the role that it [Hamas] is playing in our region." I liked the comment made by Mr. Turki Al Sudairi, the editor of the "al-Riyadh" newspaper when he said on the "Ekhbariya" news channel that "these doubts are equivalent to the population of the Arab world."

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Stalled peace process widens Fatah-Hamas divide
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Omar Karmi - December 31, 2009 - 1:00am

GAZA CITY // Just under a year ago, as Israeli tanks rumbled out of a devastated Gaza Strip accompanied by a final volley of homemade rockets, it was hard to imagine that there could be any return to the political status quo ante or that the division between the West Bank and Gaza would continue for long.

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Abbas pessimistic about peace process
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 21, 2009 - 1:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed despair about the Middle East peace process in an interview that appeared on Sundaay. “I found all ways blocked, then I decided not to rerun for another term, and that is not fleeing responsibility,” he told the pan-Arab newspaper Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat. “I am not optimistic and I do not want to have illusions,” he also said. He also revealed that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered him a proposal for a peace agreement that, with land swaps, would give Palestinians land equal to 100% of the territory of the West Bank.

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The Palestinian Situation and the Egyptian Fig Leaf
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Mohammad Salah - (Opinion) December 20, 2009 - 1:00am

An Arab official challenged me and affirmed his conviction that no reconciliation will take place between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. He said that the current situation achieves the interests of the two sides, irrespective of the interest of the Palestinian people. When I asked about the Egyptian mediation efforts and their benefit, and Cairo’s expectation of a response by Hamas to the Egyptian negotiating card, the official said he was certain that Hamas would not agree to it as is.

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Palestinian leaders to extend President Mahmoud Abbas's term indefinitely
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Howard Schneider - December 16, 2009 - 1:00am

The Palestinian Liberation Organization's ruling Central Council gathered here this week to extend the soon-to-expire term of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a session that promised to say as much about the drift and division in Palestinian politics as about the 74-year-old leader's standing.

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Mahmoud Abbas remains in charge of PLO until elections can be held
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - December 16, 2009 - 1:00am

Reporting from Ramallah, West Bank - With a giant poster of deceased leader Yasser Arafat smiling over them, members of the Palestine Liberation Organization's central council gathered here Tuesday to indefinitely extend President Mahmoud Abbas' term until credible elections can be held. The extension, expected to be formally approved today, should provide a degree of short-term stability to the fractured Palestinian movement. But for some, the stopgap measure only papers over an emerging PLO leadership crisis that could become yet another obstacle to peace talks.

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Hamas-Fatah summit proposed
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 16, 2009 - 1:00am

Egyptian mediators agreed to hold a meeting between opposing Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah, a Palestinian official involved in the talks said on Wednesday. Iyad As-Sarraj, a prominent Gaza psychiatrist who heads the nonpartisan Palestinian Reconciliation Committee, said Egypt accepted a suggestion from the group during a meeting in Cairo on Tuesday night to hold a three-day workshop with Hamas, Fatah, and other factions.

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Hamas: PA security forces arrest 80 members in 24 hours
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 16, 2009 - 1:00am

Palestinian Authority security forces have arrested 80 members of the Hamas movement from locations across the West Bank in the last 24 hours a statement from the party issued on Wednesday said. The statement noted that the arrests occurred in ten of the eleven districts in the West Bank, including Nablus, Jenin, Salfit, Hebron, Tulkarem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jericho, Qalqiliya and Tubas. The statement included the names of 50 alleged supporters, which could not all be independently verified by Ma'an.

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