Peace Negotiations | The American Task Force on Palestine

Danger, in the absence of peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Arabiya
by Musa Keilani - (Opinion) December 4, 2011 - 1:00am

His Majesty King Abdullah has raised Jordan’s diplomatic profile as a key country seeking a realistic solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem based on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in United Nations resolutions and international law.

Panetta: Israel should ‘just get to the damn table’ with Palestine
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by David Ignatius - (Opinion) December 2, 2011 - 1:00am

Obama administration officials often seem to be walking on eggshells when they talk about issues involving Israel. So it was interesting Friday night to hear Defense Secretary Leon Panetta forcefully caution a U.S.-Israeli audience about the dangers of bombing Iran and tell Israel to “just get to the damn table” in peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

A Jewish role model
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
(Editorial) November 30, 2011 - 1:00am

On November 29, 1947, when the UN General Assembly, in a 33-13 vote, supported the creation of a Jewish and an Arab state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, Israel was already a fait accompli. Resolution 181 essentially gave international recognition to what was already a fully operating Jewish sovereign entity.

PA collapse 'not the end of the world' for Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
(Analysis) November 28, 2011 - 1:00am

An Israeli official said Saturday evening on live television that if the Palestinian Authority collapses it would not be the "end of the world for Israel." Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, Yedioth Ahronoth columnist Shimon Sheffer, former Palestinian minister Sufian Zayda, and Dove Viziglas, who was former adviser to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, were analyzing the possibility of the PA disbanding on the television show "Face the press." "The Palestinians have to know that they can’t scare us by threatening to disband the PA," Ayalon said.

The regional Islamist circumstances are changing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) November 21, 2011 - 1:00am

The notion of integrating Hamas, and with it the Gaza Strip, into a Palestinian unity government reflects the primary trend that has thus far defined the Arab revolutionary wave: Arab Islamist movements are entering government. In this sense, Hamas' victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections was very much a harbinger of things to come elsewhere in the Arab world.

Ransoming Israel’s chance for peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Shlomo Ben-Ami - (Opinion) November 19, 2011 - 1:00am

The exchange of prisoners between enemies is often a prelude to political reconciliation. Unfortunately, the recent exchange between Israel and Hamas, in which the Islamist organisation gained the lion’s share of more than 1,000 prisoners in exchange for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, does not augur well for the chances of an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The mother of all gambles
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Ahram
by Abdel-Moneim Said - (Opinion) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am

It is reported that in his attempt to pitch to the Palestinian leadership the Oslo Accords, which he played a key role in negotiating, Mahmoud Abbas -- Abu Mazen -- described them as a gamble. Before long it was palpable that he did not master the rules of the game that he had dragged the Palestinians into. It seems that Abu Mazen, like any skill-less gambler, was placing his hopes solely on being dealt a royal flush.

Rabin knew road to peace passed through the bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Nehemia Shtrasler - (Analysis) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am

Last Saturday night, I went to the square. I do so every year, as part of my civic duty to salute the prime minister who was assassinated on the altar of peace. Everyone should devote at least one day a year to the frustrating thought that if the Shin Bet security service had done its job and arrested the murderer, we would today be living in a completely different reality - a much better one.

Sen. George Mitchell on Mid-East Peace Process
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Free Press
by Christine Parrish - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am

Senator George Mitchell told an overflow crowd at the University of Maine Hutchinson Center in Belfast on Tuesday morning that the Middle East peace process, which he spent two and a half years shepherding as the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, is not dead and that it is crucial to continue the effort towards a two-state solution.

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