Israel Ready To Negotiate On Jerusalem, Its "third Rail"?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from McClatchy News
by Dion Nissenbaum - October 29, 2007 - 6:45pm

The last time Israeli leaders sat down for meaningful peace talks with Palestinian negotiators, then-Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert led a march around the Old City's ancient walls to protest any plans to divide his adopted home. "No concessions on Jerusalem," Olmert said on the eve of the 2000 Camp David summit. "For 33 years, Israel has said there will never be a compromise on Jerusalem. Do you think we were joking?"

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Images That Shock
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
(Special Report) October 25, 2007 - 11:33am

Occasionally the mask slips and unpalatable truths emerge. The Guardian has filmed rare scenes inside Hamas-controlled Gaza which the various players in the unfolding tragedy of the Middle East would rather we did not see - Hamas beating up Fatah dissenters, Palestinian doctors forced by their Fatah paymasters to go on strike or forfeit their salaries, the militants who log on to Google Earth to search for Israeli targets for their Qassam rockets. The images, now on the Guardian's website, affront our concept of right and wrong, but they serve our understanding of what is going on.

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At Last, Consensus In The Middle East: All Agree These Talks Are Bound To Fail
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Jonathan Freedland - (Opinion) October 24, 2007 - 2:33pm

It takes a special kind of genius to unite the warring parties of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but George Bush may just have pulled it off. His proposal for what the US administration calls a "meeting", rather than a peace conference, in Annapolis, Maryland, before the end of the year has elicited a unanimity unheard of in the Middle East. From the hardmen of Hamas to the hawks of Likud, there is a rare consensus: Annapolis is doomed to failure.

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Palestine: A Policy Of Deliberate Blindness
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Le Monde Diplomatique
by Régis Debray - (Opinion) October 22, 2007 - 2:49pm

Dennis Ross, formerly the United States envoy to the Middle East, admitted back in 2000 that mistakes had been made in the 1978 Camp David accords: the diplomatic process had not taken enough account of developments on the ground, especially the settlements. The number of Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories doubled from 1994 to 2000. As many Israelis have settled in the West Bank since the Oslo accords of 1993 as in the previous 25 years. With an international conference again being discussed, it would be a mistake to continue to ignore the real state of affairs.

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Against All Odds
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Amotz Asa-el - (Opinion) October 22, 2007 - 11:50am

Kissinger, said author Joseph Heller, brought peace to Vietnam the way Napoleon brought it to Europe: by losing. Now a variation on this theme may slowly be emerging in the Middle East.

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The Rush For A Legacy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Jackson Diehl - October 22, 2007 - 10:48am

In a speech to a meeting of democratic freedom fighters in Prague on June 5, President Bush announced a concrete mission for his State Department. "I have asked Secretary Rice," he said, "to send a directive to every U.S. ambassador in an unfree nation: Seek out and meet with activists for democracy. Seek out those who demand human rights."

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Arming Its Friends And Talking Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
October 22, 2007 - 10:35am

In short, a new sort of cold war stalks the region

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One Last Try?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum
by M.J. Rosenberg - (Opinion) October 22, 2007 - 10:32am

The Bush administration has unveiled a four-part plan to rescue its overall Middle East policy, from Saudi Arabia to Iran/Iraq and Israel/Palestine.

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Too Little, Too Late
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) October 22, 2007 - 10:07am

Unlike the Magi of Biblical times who came from the Orient, two American "kings" are visiting the Middle East this month bearing expensive gifts and rewards to the various rulers in the region provided they will back the Bush administration's controversial, if not discredited, policies in the region. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defence Robert Gates are this week offering more than $60 billion in American weaponry to the governments of Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain.

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Time Does Not Take Orders From Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) October 19, 2007 - 8:40pm

The Palestinian partner was born in Oslo in the summer of 1993, and died seven years later at Camp David. Following seven more years of violence, diplomatic stalemate and renewed settlement - and following the disillusionment from the misconception of unilateral moves - the word "partner" is slowly making a comeback.

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