The Pragmatist
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Tablet Magazine
by Michael Weiss - December 8, 2009 - 1:00am

The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, was sharing his vision for the future. “The key requirement for a Palestinian state,” he began, speaking on a cellular telephone from his office in Ramallah. Then the line went dead, a dropped call. “You’ll have to excuse,” he said when he rang back. “We have a lot of competing cellular networks here, and sometimes our signals get crossed.”

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Abbas urges peace in Sleiman talks, offers camps cooperation
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
December 8, 2009 - 1:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stressed Monday Lebanon’s full authority and sovereignty over all Palestinian refugees camps while underscoring that the refugees’ presence was temporary, until a comprehensive peace solution was reached. “There are no legions under the command of the Palestinian authority in refugee camps and we would cooperate with the Lebanese state to the extent the latter allows, since the camps are Lebanese territories upon which the Palestinians live; thus Lebanon has full sovereignty over them,” Abbas said Monday, following his meeting with President Michel Sleiman.

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The Pragmatist
Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In Tablet Magazine - December 8, 2009 - 1:00am

The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, was sharing his vision for the future. “The key requirement for a Palestinian state,” he began, speaking on a cellular telephone from his office in Ramallah. Then the line went dead, a dropped call. “You’ll have to excuse,” he said when he rang back. “We have a lot of competing cellular networks here, and sometimes our signals get crossed.”

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Report: Egypt to offer new reconciliation plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 7, 2009 - 1:00am

Egypt intends to propose a new suggestion to the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation plan, focusing on disputed points, while Cairo will ask both sides to either accept or refuse the plan as a whole, but will not allow amendments, according to Al-Yaum, a Saudi newspaper, on Monday. Egyptian mediators will restart dialogue that was frozen for months following the Palestinian Authority's deferred discussion of the UN-backed Goldstone report, a high-profile source said Monday.

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Hamas fighter dies in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 2, 2009 - 1:00am

Hamas’ armed wing said one of its members died early Wednesday during what it described as a “Jihad mission” in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. In a statement, the Al-Qassam Brigades said 37-year-old Yasser Sabri Radi, a resident of the An-Nuseirat Refugee Camp, died during the mission. The statement did not disclose further details. On Monday night a member of Fatah’s armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Brigades, was killed when a car exploded in the Ash-Shati Refugee Camp near Gaza City. The Israeli military said it had no connection to the blast.


One Palestinian Prisoner Could Change the Balance
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Jerrold Kessel, Pierre Klochendler - (Analysis) November 30, 2009 - 1:00am

The political timing is definitely ripe. This week a major residual source of tension between Israelis and Palestinians may just be about to be resolved - if German mediation finally overcomes last-minute hitches to the long-awaited exchange - a thousand Palestinian prisoners for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. It's not yet certain that the prisoner exchange will go through. Nor is it clear who among the 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails will be part of the deal.

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If Mahmoud Abbas steps down, Hamas official next in line
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Ilene Prusher - November 27, 2009 - 1:00am

If Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of the mainstream Fatah party makes good on his threat to resign, the man constitutionally assured his post is from the rival Hamas faction. His name is Aziz Dweik, a leading member of Hamas who was released from Israeli prison this summer after being held for three years.

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Hamas and Fatah wage rivalry on Gaza’s walls
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Erin Cunningham - November 26, 2009 - 1:00am

Mohammed Fouad’s eyes darted from place to place on the quiet Gaza City street. Puffing nervously on a cigarette, he began brisk strokes with an aerosol paint can and in just five minutes completed a near-perfect portrait of the late Fatah leader Yasser Arafat. “If they see me, I’ll go to jail,” Mr Fouad said, referring to the Hamas policemen who forbade him from writing or drawing any pro-Fatah graffiti on Gaza’s walls. “I’ve been to jail five times since the Hamas takeover because of my art.”

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Barghouti: Shalit abduction achieved what no dialogue could
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff - November 25, 2009 - 1:00am

Fatah strongman Marwan Barghouti said in an interview on Wednesday that he intends to run in the next Palestinian presidential election, and remarked that the abduction of Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit by Gaza militants achieved what no negotiations could ever achieve.

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Hamas at a Loss
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Tariq Alhomayed - (Opinion) November 23, 2009 - 1:00am

Palestinian President [Mahmoud Abbas] announced that Hamas secretly negotiated with Israel on the establishment of a provisional Palestinian State, until Mahmoud al-Zahar, a [senior] member of the Hamas Political Bureau denied this with a vehemence that we have become all too familiar with.

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