Abbas and Olmert to meet amid doubts of a deal
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Wafa Amr - September 15, 2008 - 8:00pm

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday in a last-minute bid to clinch an agreement a day before his Kadima party holds an election to replace him. "Olmert will make a last-ditch effort to reach a deal, but I doubt they can finalize anything in tonight's meeting," an Israeli political source said. Senior Abbas aides said the Palestinians had rejected Israeli proposals to sign a "shelf" deal, which would not go into effect until Abbas regained control of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

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Israel's Gaza shelling may be war crime - Tutu
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
September 15, 2008 - 8:00pm

Israel's deadly shelling in the Gaza Strip in November 2006 may constitute a war crime, South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu said in a report to the United Nations released on Monday. Tutu, who serves as an independent UN human rights envoy, said Israel must be held accountable for its strike that hit two homes in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, killing 18 people.

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The Issue of Five Million Palestinian Refugees
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed - September 15, 2008 - 8:00pm

Talking to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz last week, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas admitted that the refugees represent the main obstacle preventing a peace agreement with Israel. He said that matters are not yet clear; every issue has complicated details for those who would return to the West Bank and Gaza Strip and those whom Israel would agree to return to their land which is today's Israel.

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Olmert voices sorrow for plight of Palestinian, Jewish refugees
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Shahar Ilan - September 14, 2008 - 8:00pm

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday said he was sorry for the plight of Palestinians and Jews who became refugees as a result of Israel's establishment. "I join in expressing sorrow for what happened to the Palestinians and also for what happened to the Jews who were expelled from Arab states," the prime minister said. Olmert made the comments before a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, apparently in his last such session as prime minister. He was speaking in reference to the key Palestinian demand for a "right of return" in peace negotiations with Israel.

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A Mideast Crisis to Avert
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Dennis Ross - September 14, 2008 - 8:00pm

Having just spent a week visiting Israelis and Palestinians, I find it hard not to be struck by the sense that everything is in limbo. Even as they continue to negotiate, Israelis and Palestinians are, for the most part, biding their time as they wait to see what the political transition in Israel and in the United States will produce. But there is a looming issue that I found to be worrying Palestinians and Israelis alike: What happens in January when Mahmoud Abbas's term as president of the Palestinian Authority expires?

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Abbas to Haaretz: We will compromise on refugees
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - September 14, 2008 - 8:00pm

Perhaps it was the daytime fast and abstention from smoking during the holy month of Ramadan, and perhaps it was the conversation about the exhausting negotiations with Israel that caused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) to press the white button at least three times in the course of last Wednesday's interview. Sa'id, his personal assistant, enters without a word, pulls out the packet and lights a cigarette for the president. Abu Mazen's relaxed mood does not hint at all the troubles bombarding him from inside and out.

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Abbas: Mid-East deal is far off
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC World News
September 11, 2008 - 8:00pm

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said peace talks with Israel have failed to reach any breakthrough, despite nine months of negotiations. "I can't say that even one issue has been agreed upon," Mr Abbas told Israel's Haaretz newspaper. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have met since talks resumed following a US-sponsored summit last November. But Mr Abbas said the process would continue with whoever replaced Israel's outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Mr Olmert has said he will step down after his Kadima party chooses a new leader next week.

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Overcoming our whirlwinds
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Saliba Sarsar - (Opinion) September 11, 2008 - 8:00pm

Dan Bar-On had a story about how he learned to see things through Palestinian eyes. An Israeli Jew, born in Haifa to refugees who had left Nazi Germany in 1933, Dan was a psychology professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and he had long been interested in seeing his nation live in peace with its Palestinian neighbors. At a certain point back in the mid-1990s, however, he realized, as he told me in a formal interview I conducted with him last year, that "I could not live my life in this region without seeing Palestinians, without feeling their pain."

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PM Fayyad: Int'l community must press Israel to halt settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - September 11, 2008 - 8:00pm

The international community's support for the peace process is meaningless so long as there is no real pressure on Israel to halt settlement expansion in the West Bank, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told visiting European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Friday. During his meeting with Solana in Ramallah, Fayyad said Israel's continued building in the settlements is a blatant violation of international law, according to Israel Radio.

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In Jerusalem All Politics Isn?t Local
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum
by Sadie Goldman - September 10, 2008 - 8:00pm

The circus that is Jerusalem local politics is back in the headlines with the kick-off of its mayoral race.

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