The Great Debate: Middle East Peace
Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In Boston University - November 16, 2011 - 1:00am

Achieving meaningful peace in the Middle East has become one of the most contentious issues facing the international community. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, centered largely on issues of borders, control of Israeli settlements, and freedom of movement for Palestinians, remains a stalemate, despite efforts by the Obama administration to bring both sides back to the table for revived peace talks earlier this year.

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Palestinians must come to the table
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Boston Herald
by Shai Bazak - (Opinion) November 16, 2011 - 1:00am

The situation in our part of the Middle East doesn’t appear to make much sense at first glance. Israel has declared that it supports the establishment of two states for two peoples — which includes a Palestinian state. The Palestinians say they want a state. So why do two seemingly identical positions not lead to the expected outcome? The answer is simple — both sides hold opposing views on the means to reach this goal.

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Why should anyone believe Netanyahu?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) November 14, 2011 - 1:00am

If the law enabled putting leaders on trial for serial defrauding of the public and obtaining support through deception, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be keeping company with Moshe Katsav in prison. The former president has been convicted of raping women who were his subordinates and misuse of his authority. Netanyahu is having his nefarious way with Israeli democracy and using his status in order to lead Israeli society astray, all the way to diplomatic and economic isolation.

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‘You are fed up with him?’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Uri Avnery - (Analysis) November 14, 2011 - 1:00am

With the Internet now everywhere, it has become impossible to suppress news YOU CAN lie to all of the people some of the time, and to some of the people all of the time, but you cannot lie to all of the people all of the time.”

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No movement on issues dividing Israel and Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
(Blog) November 14, 2011 - 1:00am

As representatives of the Mideast quartet tried again Monday to break the ice between Palestinians and Israelis, Israel's cabinet decided to maintain another freeze, that of Palestinian tax money. Israel collects around $100 million of taxes and customs for the Palestinian Authority as part of the economic agreements signed in the 1990s. Every so often, Israel suspends transfer of this money; it currently is freezing funds in retaliation for the Palestinians' successful bid for membership in the United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO.

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Israel-Palestinian Negotiations: Peace Process Faltered Over Domestic Politics
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post
by Joshua Hersh - (Blog) November 10, 2011 - 1:00am

WASHINGTON -- Last August, Dennis Ross, President Obama's top Middle East peace negotiator, paid a visit to a pro-Israel think tank in Washington. Speaking privately before a small gathering of experts and analysts at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, he offered a dire prognosis for the state of peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis, according to multiple people in the room.

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Israel, Palestine need new paradigm to resolve conflict
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Adel Safty - (Opinion) November 7, 2011 - 1:00am

Last week, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) at a meeting of its General Assembly, admitted Palestine as a full member. The meeting was emotional. As it began, someone shouted Vive La Palestine (long live Palestine); when the delegates began to vote on the resolution to admit Palestine, the hall rang with loud and sustained cheers, as representatives of Austria, Russia, Brazil, India, China, South Africa and France indicated their country's affirmative vote. The resolution was carried with 107 for, 14 against and 52 abstentions.

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Encountering Peace: Let’s not talk?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gershon Baskin - (Opinion) November 7, 2011 - 1:00am

Shortly before Binyamin Netanyahu began his first term of office as prime minister in 1996, the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to create an environmental experts’ committee to undertake the planning and implementation of much needed cooperation on environmental issues. Committee members from both sides were dedicated scientists and environmentalists and were anxious to advance projects that would protect the land, clean up polluted wadis, develop sewage treatment plants and much more.

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Olmert’s offer - ‘too good to be true’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Musa Keilani - (Opinion) November 6, 2011 - 12:00am

Former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said last week that prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace are far worse today than when she left office.

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The Russell Tribunal on Palestine can promote peace, truth and reconciliation
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Michael Mansfield, Desmond Tutu - (Opinion) November 3, 2011 - 12:00am

Opportunities to break seemingly intractable and deadlocked situations are rare – especially on a scale which has rapidly developed this year from the beleaguered cries of citizenry across North Africa and the Middle East. There is a palpable consensus that the provenance of this movement is lodged firmly in the fundamental prerequisite for meaningful democracy: self-determination. All conventions on human rights have this tenet as a core rationale. Where it is repeatedly denied and suppressed there will never be peace or justice, let alone stability.

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