Lift the siege of Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
(Editorial) December 19, 2008 - 1:00am

Contrary to the absurd claim of the rapporteur of the UN’s Human Rights Council, to whom Israel refused entry this week, the Gaza Strip is not facing a Nazi-like “Holocaust” at Israel’s hands. But the lot of the 1.5m Palestinians cooped up in this miserable scrap of desert is undeniably awful. Locked in on one side by Israel and on the other by Egypt, the Palestinians of Gaza have been subjected to an ever-tightening economic siege since the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas, booted the secular Fatah movement out of the strip in June 2007.

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A Comprehensive Approach to the Middle East Peace Process
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by David Miliband - (Opinion) December 18, 2008 - 1:00am

Next year needs to be an important year for the Arab-Israeli conflict. Unless we make real progress, the prospect of a two-state solution will slowly - or perhaps fast - slip away. The situation on the ground leaves too many people insecure, in poverty and despair, and is rapidly undermining the political process. While both sides are tiring of the conflict, they are also tiring, faster, of efforts to resolve it.

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Obama and the Israel-Palestine Conflict
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Counterpunch
by Jeff Halper - (Opinion) December 17, 2008 - 1:00am

Writing recently in The Washington Post ("Middle East Priorities," Nov. 21), Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, two former US National Security Advisors, a Republican and a Democrat, declared: "We believe that the Arab-Israeli peace process is one issue that requires priority attention [from the incoming Obama Administration]."

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Q&A with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Ali al-Saleh - December 16, 2008 - 1:00am

In this in-depth interview, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas talks to Asharq Al-Awsat on a range of issues including the recent inter-Palestinian talks held in Cairo, Hamas, the Israeli blockade, the Bush administration and the future of the Arab-Israeli peace process. Q) Let us begin with the inter-Palestinian talks in Cairo; did Hamas boycott the talks because some of its members were imprisoned in the West Bank?

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Negotiator: Israel wants 6.8 percent of West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Aron Heller - December 15, 2008 - 1:00am

Israel proposed to annex 6.8 percent of the West Bank and to take in a few thousand refugees under a peace deal, but it has not revealed its position on the most contentious issue _ the future of Jerusalem, the chief Palestinian negotiators said Friday night. Ahmed Qureia said the Palestinian side did not consider the ideas presented on annexation and the return of some Palestinians to be acceptable.

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Amira Hass returns to Gaza after a two-year absence
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - December 12, 2008 - 1:00am

The first thing that captures your eyes, after two years away, is a visual quiet. Gone are the flags of every color (including green) that once flew everywhere; the billboards commemorating shaheeds with their weapons, new ones popping up nearly every day; the large banners emblazoned with slogans. Yes, here and there you still come across a tattered flag or faded sign, old graffiti on the walls, or a smiling Arafat beaming down from a giant poster that no one took the trouble to remove, the colors dulled by time.

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Lebanon refugees fear for future
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Natalia Antelava - December 11, 2008 - 1:00am

Ruins and rubble are all that is left of Nahr al-Bared, a camp for Palestinian refugees near the Lebanese city of Tripoli. Piles of ravaged concrete tower over the Mediterranean, cutting into the grey clouds of the winter sky. As we pass a battered army checkpoint the scale of destruction emerges - mind-boggling and depressing at the same time. "It was scary, very scary," our guide Fady Tayyar says as we drive into the camp accompanied by the Lebanese army. No-one is allowed to enter Nahr al- Bared without permission.

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Giving peace in Palestine no chance
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Michael Young - December 11, 2008 - 1:00am

Rarely a day goes by without someone offering new advice to the incoming Obama administration on how to deal with the Middle East. This advice is usually based on a simple principle: If George W. Bush pursued a specific policy, Barack Obama must do the opposite.

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What 'yes' means
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Mati Steinberg - (Opinion) December 9, 2008 - 1:00am

Finally, six years after it was conceived and in the six years in which it has been reaffirmed annually, the Arab Peace Initiative has merited a discussion among the Israeli public. When the Arab world unanimously said "no," we didn't ask about its intentions. When the Arab world says "yes" to Israel, yes to normalization and an end to the conflict, the puzzled expressions multiply as to what exactly is meant by "yes."

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This election's real meaning
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) December 8, 2008 - 1:00am

It happened four weeks before the heroic evacuation of the House of Contention in Hebron. In the middle of the night, police officers entered a small apartment in the Shimon Hatzadik compound in the Sheikh Jarra neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The police officers easily overwhelmed a handful of human-rights activists and evicted the al-Kurd family, which had lived there for 52 years.

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