PA to demand Barghouti release as part of renewed negotiations with Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Avi Issacharoff - (Analysis) October 25, 2011 - 12:00am

The Palestinian Authority is set to demand that the Quartet pressure Israel to release prisoners in fulfillment of a pledge made by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, senior Palestinian sources told Haaretz on Monday. Among the prisoners The PA wants released are Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat. The former is a member of the Fatah leadership, while Saadat is Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

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No impact on a dead process
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) October 24, 2011 - 12:00am

Perhaps surprisingly to some, the exchange of prisoners negotiated between Israel and Hamas, with Egypt's mediation, might not have any impact at all on the peace process. This deal was most remarkable in its overwhelmingly positive reception by the Israeli and Palestinian publics. Israelis were a little bit cautious but mostly supportive. Palestinians, for their part, considered it a huge achievement. Despite this "win-win" outcome, it is difficult for any deal to have an impact on a political process that simply no longer exists.

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Not relevant to the real issue
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) October 24, 2011 - 12:00am

The best hint the Middle East could provide as to the ramifications of last week's prisoner exchange for the overall conflict came two days after the exchange itself. It was the dramatic death of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. The pace of events in the region, particular in light of the Arab revolutions surrounding Israel and Palestine, is so great and so varied and unpredictable that no single event involving repatriated prisoners could possibly have a lasting effect.

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Arab Spring may endanger Mideast peace - Blair
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Alertnet
by Tom Pfeiffer - (Analysis) October 23, 2011 - 12:00am

Arab pro-democracy uprisings spell more regional instability that could complicate peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians but also make it necessary to get the process back on track, envoy Tony Blair said on Sunday. Blair will sit down separately with Israeli and Palestinian officials this week in Jerusalem to try to revive a peace process that broke down more than a year ago because of a dispute over Jewish settlement expansion.

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After the swap, a chance for peace talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) October 22, 2011 - 12:00am

The prisoners exchange that Hamas and Israel concluded this week could be a potential historic turning point in an otherwise moribund “peace process” where no noteworthy breakthrough has occurred in the past nearly 20 years of American-mediated, and therefore mostly Israeli-defined, talks. The prisoners exchange is significant for showing that the most implacable and violent enemies are able to negotiate and reach agreement, when both sides obtain gains that are sufficiently important for them to be able then to make concessions on issues of equal importance to the other side.

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Palestinian PM Fayyad: Time is not right for serious peace talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Natasha Mozgovaya - October 20, 2011 - 12:00am

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Thursday that Palestinian-American relations are currently strained, and that many Palestinians are very disappointed with the yields of diplomacy, but he stressed that the Palestinians are committed to the peace process. "We want to see an end to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967. We want the Palestinian people to live with dignity. Fayyad said the Palestinians are committed to resolving the conflict, but that "the conditions are not right to resume talks."

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Quartet to meet Israelis, Palestinians separately
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
October 18, 2011 - 12:00am

Envoys of the Middle East Quartet will meet separately with Israeli and Palestinian representatives in Jerusalem on Oct. 26 as they seek a way forward on peace talks, the State Department said Monday. "Quartet envoys will be meeting with the parties in Jerusalem on October 26 with the aim to begin preparations and develop an agenda for proceeding with the negotiations," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, adding afterwards that "separate" meetings would be held.

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Gilad Shalit exchange: Egypt emerges again as lynchpin in the Middle East
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Ian Black - (Analysis) October 18, 2011 - 12:00am

The Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has completed the first stage on his journey home to Mizpe Hila, northern Israel, beginning a prisoner swap deal in which hundreds of Palestinian inmates are to be freed in return for the armoured sergeant who was captured in 2006. According to an Israeli military spokesman, Shalit is undergoing assessment at Kerem Shalom, close to the Egyptian-Israeli border, before making his way to the Tel Nof airbase in central Israel, where he will be reunited with his parents and meet the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

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Shalit deal win-win situation for all
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Linda S. Heard - (Opinion) October 18, 2011 - 12:00am

Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier abducted by Palestinian fighters on the Israeli side of Israel's border with Gaza over five years ago, is scheduled to be released today as part of a prisoner-swap deal between Hamas and the Israeli government brokered by Egypt. His parents Noam and Aviva, who have been camping out in occupied Jerusalem for a year have left their protest tent to spruce up their home in the tiny northern Israeli village of Mitzpe Hila for their son's homecoming.

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Middle East peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
by Gideon Lichfield - October 17, 2011 - 12:00am

"Insanity", goes a motto* much quoted by jaded Jerusalem-based diplomats on their second gin-and-tonic, "is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results." Next month marks the 20th anniversary of the first public Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Madrid. At each step since then—in Oslo, Wye River, Camp David, Taba, Sharm el-Sheikh and Washington, DC—the negotiators, like Achilles approaching the tortoise in Zeno's famous paradox, have seemed to close one more fraction of the gap between them. Yet a gap always remains.

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