Business can help unlock Palestine’s potential
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Salam Fayyad - (Opinion) December 14, 2008 - 1:00am

A full year after the Annapolis process began and with only two weeks before the end of 2008 – the target date for reaching a comprehensive Palestinian-Israeli agreement – one cannot but be disappointed that Palestinians and Israelis have yet to reach their shared goal of lasting peace. We Palestinians had also hoped that we would have had more to show on the ground for our commitment to the peace process.

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ATFP President Joins Panel at Israel Policy Forum Symposium
Press Release - Contact Information: Omar Tuffaha - December 12, 2008 - 1:00am

On December 4th, ATFP President Dr. Ziad Asali joined a panel discussion at the Israel Policy Forum's (IPF) Annual Symposium. The panel, entitled "Keeping the Two-State Solution Alive: Israel-Palestine Negotiations One Year After Annapolis," was moderated by IPF National Scholar Dr. Steven Spiegel who presented questions to Dr. Asali and Dr .Yoram Peri, the Head of the Chaim Herzog Institute for Media, Politics, and Society.


Bibi's Blunders
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New Republic
by Shmuel Rosner - December 12, 2008 - 1:00am

In October, when Tzipi Livni, who had won the race to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as head of Israel's ruling Kadima Party, announced that she was unable to form a governing coalition, you could almost hear the groans coming from across the Atlantic and from European capitals. The reason? Livni's failure to assemble a government means new elections will take place in February.

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Giving peace in Palestine no chance
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Michael Young - December 11, 2008 - 1:00am

Rarely a day goes by without someone offering new advice to the incoming Obama administration on how to deal with the Middle East. This advice is usually based on a simple principle: If George W. Bush pursued a specific policy, Barack Obama must do the opposite.

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Watch Jim Jones, he breaks stalemates
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by David Ignatius - (Opinion) December 6, 2008 - 1:00am

For a preview of how General Jim Jones will operate as national security adviser in the incoming Obama administration, it's useful to look at his performance as special envoy on Middle East security for the outgoing Bush administration. His effort there has helped yield one of the few recent success stories in the grinding Israeli-Palestinian stalemate.

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Obama Could End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Counterpunch
by Yinon Cohen, Neve Gordon - December 5, 2008 - 1:00am

As Barack Obama enters the oval office he will face a series of daunting challenges. One of these is confronting the age old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been seriously, yet unsuccessfully, tackled by every American president since Jimmy Carter. The inability to reach a peaceful solution has not only had fatal repercussions for the people residing in Israel and the Occupied Territories, but has also been detrimental to Middle East stability and to vital US interests in the region.

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ATFP Co-hosts Event with PLO Negotiators on Future of the Peace Process
Press Release - Contact Information: Omar Tuffaha - December 4, 2008 - 1:00am

Washington, DC, Dec. 4 – On Dec. 4 the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), the Foundation for Middle East Peace and the Middle East Institute hosted a group of officials from the PLO Negotiation Affairs Department (NAD) for a discussion of The Future of the Peace Process: A Palestinian Perspective, at the Middle East Institute’s headquarters in Washington, DC. Maen Areikat, Rami Dajani and Khaled Elgindy discussed the Palestinian positions and negotiating strategy, and answered numerous questions from the attendees.


Still talking: Annapolis one year on
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC World News
by Paul Wood - November 26, 2008 - 8:00pm

At dinner in Ramallah recently, amid heaped plates of rice and chicken, a raucous but friendly political debate was going on with the usual arm waving and raised voices. One of those at the table was a tough-looking young officer in an elite unit of the Palestinian security forces. He brandished his forearm, declaring: "If you cut my veins open, the blood will fall on the ground to make the word 'Fatah'". Who was the most important enemy: Hamas or the Israelis, I asked. Hamas, everyone told me. They had to be dealt with before anything else could be accomplished.

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Palestinians will need Barack Obama's helping hand
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Yasser Abed Rabbo - November 18, 2008 - 8:00pm

President-elect Barack Obama's defiantly positive campaign for change has inspired hope not only in the millions of Americans who voted for him, but also in the billions of others worldwide who could not. Across the Middle East, as elsewhere, expectations are building that his presidency will herald a new era for America's role in the world.

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Palestinian PM: Settlement building will destroy peace process
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - November 17, 2008 - 8:00pm

Palestinian Prime Minister and Finance Minister Salam Fayyad called on the international community to up the pressure on Israel to suspend all construction in the settlements and implied that the Palestinian Authority could apply to the International Court of Justice in this regard, adopting the example of the separation fence.

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