Two States Or One? Time To Choose
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by John V. Whitbeck - (Opinion) December 4, 2007 - 2:24pm

Almost immediately after the hollow show in Annapolis, a ray of hope has appeared from an unexpected source — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In an interview published on Nov. 29 in the Israeli daily Haaretz, he declared, “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.”

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Peace Talks Back From The Dead
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Speigel International
by Ralf Beste, Christoph Schult , Bernhard Zand - December 4, 2007 - 2:16pm

Peace in the Middle East has been but a faint glimmer on the horizon since the 2000 Camp David talks failed. But now, both the Israelis and Palestinians say they are once again committed to reaching an agreement. But it might depend on their neighbors. A Palestinian member of the Fatah Movement watches the Annapolis summit on television last week.

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The Lobby Strikes Back
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The American Conservative
by Scott Mcconnell - December 4, 2007 - 2:02pm

One prism through which to gauge the impact of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy is a September incident involving Barack Obama. His campaign had placed small ads in various spots around the Internet, designed to drive readers to its website. One turned up on Amazon’s page for the Walt and Mearsheimer book. A vigilant watchdog at the New York Sun spotted it and contacted the campaign: Did Obama support Walt and Mearsheimer?

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Gathering Israelis And Arabs May Have Been The Real Feat
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Michael Abramowitz - November 28, 2007 - 3:33pm

Grinning broadly, President Bush extended his arms around Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and pulled them together for a group photo yesterday on the grounds of the Naval Academy in Annapolis.

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Demolition Decimating Palestinian Village
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Ramsey Ben-achour - November 23, 2007 - 6:35pm

Al Walajeh village was once a quiet but busy place. Just four kilometers from Bethlehem and 8.5 km from Jerusalem, its rolling hills filled with fruit trees, natural forests, and blooming vegetation made it a prime farming location. Easy access to large and consistent markets led its inhabitants to relative economic prosperity. Life was good. Today, however, Al Walajeh village is a different place altogether. "The demolishing of houses is a weekly event here in Al Walajeh, " Sheerin Alaraj, Al Walajeh Village Council member, told IPS.

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Likudnik Hawks Work To Undermine Annapolis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Jim Lobe - November 22, 2007 - 10:32pm

Despite near-universal scepticism about the prospects for launching a serious, new Middle East peace process at next week's Israeli-Palestinian summit in Annapolis, a familiar clutch of neo-conservative hawks close to the Likud Party leader, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, isn't taking any chances.

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Documentary On Carter Offers Insights Into A Great Man
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Ray Hanania - November 20, 2007 - 1:52pm

Even before anyone realized that Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid” would stir up controversy and a lively but sometimes vicious debate, filmmaker Jonathan Demme decided to follow the former president during his book tour. Demme has produced a powerful documentary, “Jimmy Carter: A Man from Plains,” now showing in limited distribution in major cities around the country.

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The Palestinian Path To Peace Does Not Go Via Annapolis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Jonathan Steele - (Opinion) November 16, 2007 - 4:22pm

As the United States-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, approaches, the key question is what follows when it fails. Fiasco is looming, so what do the Palestinians do next? In their decades-long bid for justice, they have already tried everything.

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Israel's Economic Blockade Stops Gaza's Strawberry-farmers Selling Their Crop
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald Macintyre - November 16, 2007 - 4:20pm

Almost all of Gaza's turbulent story is bound up with Jamil Abu Hmaideh's strawberry fields here in the far north of the strip. Between two wispy clouds high in the blue sky above us, two Israeli Apache helicopters hover on the look-out for the Qassam rocket-launching crews as we bite into the luscious, perfectly ripened fruit Mr Hmaideh has picked for us.

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Mideast-us: New Scholars Group Seen As Close To White House
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Khody Akhavi - November 15, 2007 - 6:23pm

And it boasts several big name albeit controversial scholars, among them Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, two academics who advised the George W. Bush administration's policy towards the Middle East. Citing the "the increased politicisation of these fields, and the certainty that a corrupt understanding of them is a danger to the academy as well as the future of the young people it purports to educate," the newly formed Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) aims to offer "dispassionate" study of the region.

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