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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Popular Fatah Leader Complicates Prisoner Swap
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Wall Street Journal
by Charles Levinson - December 8, 2009 - 1:00am

Marwan Barghouti, the popular imprisoned Palestinian leader, embodies the promise and the peril Israel faces as it negotiates with Hamas to trade hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for a long-held Israeli soldier. Islamist Hamas says Mr. Barghouti tops the list of approximately 1,000 prisoners it is demanding Israel free in exchange for Sgt. Gilad Shalit, who Hamas has held captive in Gaza for more than three years.

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Hamas to reap prisoner swap reward
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Tobias Buck - December 8, 2009 - 1:00am

Less than a year ago, Hamas was cowering under an Israeli military onslaught that pulverised much of its political and military infrastructure. Now, in a reversal of fortune that must surprise even its leaders, Hamas is poised for a political triumph with the potential to transform its standing and Palestinian politics for years to come. The Islamist group, according to several officials, is closing in on a deal that would see hundreds of Palestinians released from Israeli jails.

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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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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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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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Why Should Obama Do Anything for the Peace Process?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Tariq Alhomayed - (Opinion) November 27, 2009 - 1:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that the US President "is not doing anything at the present time" to revive the Israeli – Palestinian negotiations for peace, adding that Obama "called for us to resume the peace process…and I hope that he plays a larger role in the future." Abbas also said that the Palestinians "are waiting for America to put pressure on Israel to respect international law and follow the roadmap for peace."

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Editorial: Time for action
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
(Editorial) November 18, 2009 - 1:00am

If both Israel and Hamas condemn the proposal of a UN declaration of independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, as they have, it suggests it must be the right idea. The Palestinian Authority has come up with it because nothing is happening to the peace process. It is their way of forcing it back onto the international agenda.

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Donald Macintyre: Palestinians throw down challenge to Obama and UN
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald MacIntyre - (Analysis) November 17, 2009 - 1:00am

As so often in the Middle East, we have been here before. The latest suggestion – that a frustrated Palestinian leadership would unilaterally declare a state and invite international recognition for it – is not new. It was made a decade ago by Yasser Arafat when Benjamin Netanyahu, then as now, was Prime Minister. It was made again after the collapse of the Camp David talks a year later, when then Prime Minister Ehud Barak, like some of Mr Netanyahu's more hawkish ministers now, threatened to annex the most populous settlements in the West Bank in retaliation.

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