U.S. sees progress in Mideast peace talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Arshad Mohammed - September 15, 2010 - 12:00am

The United States said on Wednesday it believed Israel and the Palestinians were making progress towards resolving a dispute over settlement building that threatens to sink their newly-launched peace talks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to his official residence, shaking his hand as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looked on approvingly, a day after the three met in Egypt.

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Israeli-Palestinian talks in Egypt address key issues of conflict
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - September 14, 2010 - 12:00am

Meeting in Egypt for their second peace summit in two weeks, Israeli and Palestinian leaders began discussing for the first time Tuesday some of the issues at the heart of a possible treaty, even as a dispute over settlement expansion clouds the future of the talks. Both Israeli and US officials sounded upbeat about the atmosphere at the talks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. US peace envoy George Mitchell, who accompanied Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the summit, said the discussions of those core issues were "serious, detailed, and extensive."

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PA official: We won't recognize Israel as a Jewish state
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
September 8, 2010 - 12:00am

The Palestinian Authority will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state, even though the PA acknowledges there is a Jewish majority in Israel, senior Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath said at a press conference in Ramallah on Wednesday. According to Shaath, the Palestinian negotiating team turned down Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's request to discuss the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state during the upcoming round of peace talks in Sharm el-Sheikh next week.

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The peace talks—and their obstacles
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ron Kampeas - September 7, 2010 - 12:00am

Direct talks between Palestinians and Israelis have barely begun and already the sides are facing their first major hurdle -- the end of Israel's partial moratorium on settlement building. Several issues might beset the sides as they aim to meet the yearlong deadline suggested by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and endorsed (with considerable enthusiasm) by President Obama and (with less enthusiasm) by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

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Encountering Peace: The indefatigable peacemaker’s advice
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gershon Baskin - (Opinion) August 31, 2010 - 12:00am

There won’t be many more opportunities to make it work. That is the growing consensus. Even if the public does not sense it, there is a real urgency; we must move toward reaching an agreement. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolvable. There are solutions to all problems. In addition to the multiple rounds of Track I negotiations that have taken place since Madrid in 1991, there have also been thousands of hours of informal Track II negotiations in which a couple of hundred Israeli and Palestinian experts have participated and have reached understandings and “shelf agreements.”

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Lebanon's law on Palestinian workers does not go far enough
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Ahmed Moor - (Opinion) August 27, 2010 - 12:00am

Beirut pulses with expatriate lives. Foreign nationals come from everywhere for lots of different reasons. Some of them are here to teach, others come to learn Arabic, and still others come to write. Few of them stay for 62 years.

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Abbas' position isn't as weak as it may first appear
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) August 26, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinians will begin heading home a year from now to reclaim property in their homeland, which they have not seen for 62 years since the state of Israel was established there. They will be welcomed at the border by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and thousands of cheering Israelis.

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August 2011
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Aluf Benn - (Opinion) August 25, 2010 - 12:00am

The immediate result of the announced resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian talks was the setting of a new target date on the Middle Eastern calendar: August 2011. That is when talks on all permanent-status issues, as well as Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's project of building a Palestinian state-in-the-making, are both due to conclude.

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In New Mideast Talks, A Small Victory For U.S.
Media Mention of ATFP In National Public Radio (NPR) - August 25, 2010 - 12:00am

The Obama administration has set the date for the first direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in two years, a small diplomatic victory for an administration that made Arab-Israeli peace an early priority. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have been invited to the White House on Sept.1. They will be joined by Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

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A Test of Wills Over a Patch of Desert
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - August 25, 2010 - 12:00am

The two women crouched on the floor of a tent in this windblown Bedouin encampment in the Negev Desert, hurriedly preparing the evening meal as dusk approached. They had been fasting since sunrise in observance of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Now they were cooking furiously, spicing okra in tomato sauce and stuffing hollowed-out zucchini, against a backdrop of piles of rubble, the remains of their homes recently demolished by the Israeli authorities.

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