The Pro-israel Consensus Shifts
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum
by M.J. Rosenberg - (Opinion) December 11, 2007 - 1:36pm

Good news. Some of the more conservative American Jewish institutions are coming around to acceptance of the two-state solution, ending the occupation, and sharing Jerusalem. It’s about time. The overwhelming majority of Israelis and Jewish Americans favor those positions and eventually the more status quo-oriented organizations had to catch up—especially now that the Israeli government asserts that it finally has a genuine Palestinian partner.

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Palestinians To Urge Settlement Freeze At Talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Wafa Amr - December 11, 2007 - 1:34pm

Palestinians will attend peace talks this week despite a plan by Israel to build new homes on occupied land, but will focus on demanding a settlement freeze, senior Palestinian officials said on Tuesday. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are due to meet on Wednesday two weeks after their leaders relaunched long-stalled peace talks at a U.S.-hosted conference in Annapolis, Maryland.

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Starting The Peace Process
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
(Editorial) December 11, 2007 - 1:33pm

Israelis and Palestinians are supposed to begin serious negotiations tomorrow after last month’s long-on-optics, short-on-specifics Annapolis peace meeting. Despite all the smiles and handshakes, both sides went home and fell back into some familiar, counterproductive patterns.   If this effort has any chance of success, everyone who attended Annapolis — including the Americans and Arab leaders — are going to have to work a lot harder at breaking those patterns.

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A New Test For Americans And Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Rami Khouri - December 10, 2007 - 7:11pm

You do get a second chance in most things in life, as the United States and the Palestinian leadership are experiencing now, in the wake of the revived Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations at Annapolis. The second chance to get things right has been triggered by the announcement earlier this week that Israel plans to build over 300 new housing units on occupied Palestinian Arab land in East Jerusalem at the Har Homa settlement - which the Arabs know as Jabal Abu Ghneim.

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Annapolis Outcome "proves Arab Failure"
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Khaled Moussa Al-omrani, Adam Morrow - December 10, 2007 - 7:05pm

n the wake of last month's Annapolis conference, some quarters of Arab officialdom express optimism that the talks might yet lead to a settlement of the perennial Israel-Palestine conflict. Many independent analysts, however, saw the event as little more than an exercise in submission. "Annapolis was proof of total Arab failure," Gamal Zahran, political science professor at the Suez Canal University and independent parliamentarian, told IPS. "It confirmed the ability of the Zionist U.S. administration to force its will on Arab capitals."

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A Jewish Israel Needs A Wholesome, Healed Palestine
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Rami G. Khouri - (Opinion) December 7, 2007 - 5:48pm

One of the most complex and confounding elements that emerged during the run-up to the Annapolis meeting was the demand by several senior Israelis, and its parallel rejection by Palestinian officials, that the Palestinians recognise Israel as “a Jewish state” as a precondition for the start of talks.

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The Failure Of Annapolis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy In Focus
by Stephen Zunes - (Commentary) December 5, 2007 - 4:51pm

Despite the best efforts by the Bush administration of putting a positive spin on the recently-completed summit in Annapolis to restart the “Performance-Based Road Map to Peace,” there is little reason to expect that it will actually move the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward as long as the United States insists on simultaneously playing the role of chief mediator and chief supporter of the more powerful of the two parties.

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A Letdown Even To Skeptics
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - December 4, 2007 - 2:23pm

Even those who had modest expectations for the Annapolis conference were disappointed by its results: an agreement to start negotiations and a statement that selectively reiterated parts of the roadmap that the parties had anyway failed to implement since it was introduced in 2003.

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Analysis: After Annapolis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bbc News
by Jeremy Bowen - (Editorial) December 4, 2007 - 2:17pm

The sun was going down over Chesapeake Bay last Tuesday as the Middle East diplomatic circus left the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. The Israeli and Palestinian delegations headed for home, by way of Washington DC, and more meetings with President Bush. Since the summer, just getting to Annapolis and not letting the meeting become a disaster has been the main focus of American policy towards the two sides.

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Mideast: Olmert Walks Razor's Edge In Peace Talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Peter Hirschberg - (Analysis) December 4, 2007 - 2:06pm

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has issued a dire warning to his people. Failure to reach a negotiated two-state settlement with the Palestinians, he has declared, will mean the end of the State of Israel.

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