Bush Calls For Fund To Compensate Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Tobias Buck - January 11, 2008 - 3:42pm

US President George W. Bush on Thursday called for a compensation fund for Palestinian refugees as he set out what he said was the “point of departure” for negotiations on a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians this year. At the end of two days of meetings in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Mr Bush sought to highlight his sympathy with the Palestinians more than on previous occasions and to dispel scepticism over the US’s readiness to lean on Israel.

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Occupation Of Palestinian Land Must End, Bush Tells Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald Macintyre - January 11, 2008 - 3:37pm

President George Bush last night called for Israel to end what he unequivocally called its "occupation" of territory seized in 1967 and proposed "compensation" as a means of solving the issue of Palestinian refugees.

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Substance And Symbolism: Parsing Bush's Words
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ron Kampeas - January 11, 2008 - 3:34pm

Picking apart President Bush's summing up of his Palestinian-Israeli peace brokering is a a little like reading the fine print in the nutritional information on comfort food: there's empty puffery, to be sure, but also nuggets of substance. Bush, speaking Thursday at Jerusalem's King David Hotel, was summarizing two days of working meetings with the leaders of the Israeli and Palestinian governments, his first presidential visit to the region.

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Bush Gets No Promises In Mideast Visit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Richard Bourdreaux - January 11, 2008 - 3:32pm

President Bush completed two days of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders Thursday without a firm public commitment from Israel to halt expansion of West Bank settlements or give the Palestinians a bigger role in policing the territory. Nor did the president make progress on a key Israeli concern that has stood in the way of peace talks for years: a halt in rocket attacks on southern Israel by Palestinian militants based in the Gaza Strip.

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U.s. Expectations For Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
January 11, 2008 - 3:24pm

The U.S. expectations President Bush set out Thursday for negotiations and a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, following two days of separate meetings with leaders on both sides: _A peace agreement can and should be complete within the year. _Bargaining must be serious, "starting right now." Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should continue their regular summit meetings.

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Bush Alters Stand On Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Michael Abramowitz, Jonathan Finer - January 11, 2008 - 3:21pm

President Bush said Thursday that Palestinian refugees should receive compensation for the loss of homes they fled or were forced to flee during the establishment of Israel and declared that there should be an end to Israel's "occupation" of lands seized in war four decades ago. Bush made his comments after becoming the first U.S. president to visit Ramallah, the West Bank city that is the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, in an effort to invigorate negotiations aimed at securing a peace accord before the end of his presidency.

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A New Two-way Street Called Bush
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) January 10, 2008 - 5:00pm

The objective of the US president is to rally the Arab neighbours of Iran against the latter's nuclear ambitions These are not the best of times for George W. Bush. The unpopular US president, a lame duck to boot, should not even consider venturing abroad, certainly to areas such as the turbulent Middle East where America's image has hit rock bottom during his tenure. The blame is attributed to his administration's policies which have wrecked havoc in the region and yielded little to brag about.

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In Exclusion, Hamas Counts
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Mohammed Omer - (Opinion) January 10, 2008 - 4:44pm

Leaders from the Palestinian party Hamas that won the elections in Gaza two years back have inevitably not been invited to meet Bush. The U.S. considers Hamas a terrorist organisation. Hamas took control of Gaza by force from the Fatah party headed by Abbas in June last year, about a year and a half after it swept the polls in January 2006. As Hamas leaders and supporters see it, Bush's talks with Abbas can count for little if they are kept out. And so with Abbas's talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert just ahead of Bush's visit.

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Situation Assessment / What Bush Can And Can't Accomplish
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Aluf Benn - January 9, 2008 - 6:26pm

All it took was for the engines of Air Force One to fire up to produce two major breakthroughs in talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The first was the announcement by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that they were willing to start talks dealing with the conflict's core issues. The second was Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman's promise not to cause a coalition crisis by withdrawing from the government during Bush's visit.

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Hopeless In Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Times
by Stefanie Marsh - January 9, 2008 - 6:21pm

We were in east Jerusalem, the day before we were due in the Jordan Valley to document the plight of Palestinian farmers, when the man from Oxfam burst in to the room. This was last week, when I spent five days in the occupied territories – Gaza, Hebron, the Jordan Valley and Bethlehem – inspecting living conditions in anticipation of President George Bush’s visit to Israel today.

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