A Vacuum Can Also be Used
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Husam Itani - (Opinion) November 17, 2009 - 1:00am

In his reaction to the recent Palestinian stance, Benjamin Netanyahu included the following elements: it is forbidden for you to go to the Security Council to issue a resolution that recognizes your future state. If you do this, you will not find international support. If you do obtain this support, we will put an end to this attempt by force.

»

Dilemma of the peace process
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Hassan Barari - (Opinion) November 17, 2009 - 1:00am

Now, in the absence of a peace process in the Middle East, one feels compelled to discuss two main obstacles to conciliation that have been debated time and again to no avail. First, Israel will not proceed towards peace if the Americans are not on board. This explains the explicit demand, mainly voiced by the Arabs, that a third party intervention be secured if we really aspire to a quick fix to the seemingly intractable conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

»

Why is Hamas keeping a low profile in the West Bank?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Omran Risheq - (Opinion) November 17, 2009 - 1:00am

A question one hears frequently among Palestinians these days is why Hamas Movement, a group some view with suspicion and others with sympathy, has become nearly invisible in the West Bank. Certainly Hamas has suffered a series of security blows in the last few years. Israel arrested roughly a thousand Hamas members, including elected delegates of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), following the capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006.

»

A Mideast Truce
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Roger Cohen - (Opinion) November 16, 2009 - 1:00am

I’ve grown so pessimistic about Israel-Palestine that I find myself agreeing with Israel’s hard-line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman: “Anyone who says that within the next few years an agreement can be reached ending the conflict simply doesn’t understand the situation and spreads delusions.” That’s the lesson of early Obama. The president tried to rekindle peace talks by confronting Israel on settlements, coaxing Palestinians to resume negotiations, and reaching out to the Muslim world. The effort has failed.

»

Palestinian threat to declare statehood seeks to put onus on Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Leslie Susser - November 16, 2009 - 1:00am

Frustrated by a lack of progress toward statehood, the Palestinians are considering taking their case to the United Nations. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had hopes a more Muslim-friendly U.S. administration would press Israel into a peace deal on terms favorable to the Palestinians. When this failed to materialize, Abbas announced plans to resign. Now he is following up with a threat to go to the U.N. Security Council to ask for recognition of a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders, with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.

»

Peace can be made despite Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) November 16, 2009 - 1:00am

It might be tempting to dismiss as diplomatic bluster the statement by Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestinians, that the Palestinian Liberation Organisation would declare statehood unilaterally in the near future. Certainly it would not be a novel analysis given how rife the peace process is with grandstanding and brinkmanship on both sides. The PLO tried it twice before under Yasser Arafat, who backed down both times in return for concessions and reassurances. But this time is different.

»

The US and peace: more than a dance
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) November 13, 2009 - 1:00am

There’s an increasing sentiment in the US, particularly among the liberal Left, that America has done all it can in the Middle East. If the Israelis and Palestinians don’t want peace, then why should America make them? Even more pernicious is the notion that withdrawing from the debate will allow the two sides to grow up and solve problems like adults. This is false. If the US had entered the process by choice, then it had no business being involved in the first place; but that is not the case.

»

Fatah official: Palestinian elections likely to be deferred
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Aluf Benn - November 12, 2009 - 1:00am

Most of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's White House meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama this week took place in private, and it centered mainly on the Palestinian issue. This is what Netanyahu told the people he briefed after the meeting.

»

Arafat celebrated five years after death
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
November 11, 2009 - 1:00am

More than 13,000 Palestinians gathered in Ramallah on Wednesday to mark the fifth anniversary of the death of former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. Large crowds packed into the Presidential Compound to hear a memorial from President Mahmoud Abbas, who donned a white ball cap emblazoned with the flag of Palestine and a black and white kuffeyeh as he addressed the crowd for what many anticipated to be a historic speech. Rumors spread before the event that Abbas would announce his resignation, precipitating the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority.

»

Declaring a state? Palestinian leaders weigh in
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
November 11, 2009 - 1:00am

The Palestinian National Council proclaimed the establishment of a Palestinian state during a meeting in Algiers on 15 November 1988. Like the declaration of a Palestinian state in Gaza in 1948 amidst the war with the nascent Israeli state, the 1988 declaration has little practical meaning today. For whatever reason, recent media speculation has raised the notion that Palestinian leaders could make another such declaration in the current political climate.

»


American Task Force on Palestine - 1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 725, Washington DC 20006 - Telephone: 202-262-0017