Kerry Must Hurry
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Yossi Beilin - February 6, 2013 - 1:00am

Aaron David Miller is one of the most important American figures in the Middle East peace camp. Having served in the State Department for many years, he—like many of us, has oscillated between short phases of hope and long periods of frustration. However, unlike many of his colleagues, he has never sunk into pessimism but rather solely maintains a healthy dose of cynicism and much caution when advising new Secretary of State John Kerry.

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Encountering Peace: Opportunities for US peace initiative
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gershon Baskin - (Opinion) February 4, 2013 - 1:00am

Is there a renewed opportunity for Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking after the Israeli elections? That is exactly what US Secretary of State John Kerry will be seeking to determine on his first swing through the Middle East over the next couple of weeks.

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PLO official rejects Israeli PM's call for resuming peace talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
February 3, 2013 - 1:00am

  The Palestinian leadership on Sunday rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's call to resume peace talks without preconditions. "Netanyahu's call is not serious as long as it does not respect the Palestinians requirement for restarting the peace process," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of the Executive Committee of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

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New U.S. Secretary of State to visit Israel: official
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
February 3, 2013 - 1:00am

  John Kerry, the new U.S. Secretary of State, will start his tenure with a visit to Israel in two weeks, CNN news reported citing a U.S. official. Kerry, who replaced former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday, is set to visit the Middle East including a stop in Egypt in mid-February.

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Window is closing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Dov Weissglas - (Opinion) February 2, 2013 - 1:00am

As soon as the election results were announced, Prime Minister Netanyahu said he hoped the next government would be as broad as possible and deal mainly with the issues of equal share of the burden, the economic prosperity of the middle class and housing prices. He did not mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the escalating crisis between Israel and the international community, which is a direct result of the conflict. As far as he is concerned, there is no problem at all.

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Hamas denies accepting two-state solution
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
January 31, 2013 - 1:00am

Hamas on Wednesday said it does not accept the two-state solution, following reports the party had changed its position to accept the state of Israel. The Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq reported Wednesday that Hamas politburo chief Khalid Mashaal asked Jordan's King Abdullah to inform US President Barack Obama that Hamas accepted the two-state solution. Hamas said in a statement that the report was baseless and that Mashaal did not address the two-state solution in his meeting with the Jordanian king in Amman on Monday.

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'PM said he'd okay provisional Palestinian state'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Sam Sokol - January 29, 2013 - 1:00am

While not ready to sign a comprehensive peace deal, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is willing to establish an interim Palestinian state without a final agreement, former deputy foreign minister Yossi Beilin said on Monday. Speaking during a debate with outgoing settlement council head Danny Dayan, Beilin stated that he had heard from Netanyahu that he would be ready for establishing a “provisional border with the Palestinians.” “This is something that I heard from him that he would be ready to do it,” he stated.

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Israel's New Kingmaker
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy
by Neri Zilber - (Opinion) January 29, 2013 - 1:00am

Though one of Israel's best known public figures, Yair Lapid, the surprise star of the Jan. 22 election, is a mystery abroad. He now finds himself in the unexpected position of kingmaker, free to dictate terms to a badly weakened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Netanyahu Will Not Make Peace With the Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Atlantic
by Jeffrey Goldberg - (Opinion) January 29, 2013 - 1:00am

We here at the Goldblog glass-enclosed nerve center are getting a lot of heat from our right about our assertion that not much has changed on the Israeli political landscape, especially in relation to issues concerning the Palestinians.

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Europe needs to re-commit to the peace process now
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Ilan Baruch - (Opinion) January 28, 2013 - 1:00am

Hot on the heels of the 1979 Camp David Peace Accords, signed by the leaders of Egypt and Israel and under the watchful eyes of President Carter, the European Community formulated its own key statement of Middle East policy, the Venice Declaration, signed by the heads of the European Community on June 13th 1980.

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