As Obama takes office, Mideast needs his attention
In Print by Ziad Asali - The Philadelphia Inquirer (Opinion) - January 20, 2009 - 1:00am

By Ziad Asali and Tom Dine Joe Biden predicted that Barack Obama would be tested by a foreign-policy crisis early in his term. The recent surge of violence in Gaza came even sooner than that. How Obama approaches Gaza will be critical not only for the immediate security of Israelis and Palestinians, but also for the resolution of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. relations with the world's Muslims.

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Security First
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by J.D. Crouch II, Montgomery Meigs, Walter B. Slocombe - (Opinion) January 12, 2009 - 1:00am

When the dust settles in Gaza, the Obama administration will take up the mantle of moving the two sides toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace. American efforts must focus on strengthening the capabilities of the Palestinian party upon whom hope for peace can rest, the Palestinian Authority, and ensuring the stability of the West Bank.

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Israeli troops kill 2 West bank Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
December 28, 2008 - 1:00am

RAMALLAH, West Bank: Israeli troops in the West Bank shot dead a Palestinian man and gravely wounded another on Sunday during a violent protest against Israel's deadly air campaign against Gaza militants, the army and a Palestinian medic said.

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Loving The Two-State Solution to Death
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum
by M.J. Rosenberg - December 19, 2008 - 1:00am

It didn’t take long for the “two state solution” to move from the category of radical to banal, but that is what has happened. Today the “two-state solution” is everyone’s favorite remedy. And yet it is farther from realization than ever. Its fate may, in fact, be that rare instance of a concept being killed by kindness.

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Bush to meet Abbas on Friday: White House
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP)
December 17, 2008 - 1:00am

President George W. Bush plans to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Friday at the White House, spokeswoman Dana Perino said on Tuesday. "President Bush will welcome Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas to the White House on Friday, December 19th," Perino said. "The president looks forward to discussing with him our shared efforts toward peace in the Middle East, including progress in building capable Palestinian institutions, fostering economic development, and training and deploying Palestinian security forces in the West Bank," she said.

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Middle East needs Obama’s touch
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Richard N. Haass, Martin Indyk - (Opinion) December 17, 2008 - 1:00am

President Barack Obama will face a series of challenges in the Middle East demanding urgent attention: an Iraq that could still unravel, an Iran approaching the nuclear threshold, a faltering Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and weak governments in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories challenged by strong militant Islamist groups. He will also discover that time is working against him. But with changes in policy, the incoming president can capitalise on new opportunities rather than be overwhelmed by old realities in this critical and troubled region.

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The settlers' presence is a time bomb waiting to happen
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Saed Shukhy - (Opinion) December 17, 2008 - 1:00am

The settler riots earlier this month were some of the worst instances of violence in Hebron in many years. But they were not isolated incidents and cannot be divorced from the brittle situation in Hebron that is a direct result of the city's fanatical settler presence, nor from the provocation of the settlement project in occupied Palestinian territory in general.

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Dayton: New PA forces are most capable ever
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by David Horovitz - December 11, 2008 - 1:00am

Keith Dayton, the US army general who is overseeing the training in Jordan of the Palestinian Authority's National Security Force for the West Bank, has praised the new recruits as "the most capable Palestinian security forces that have ever been fielded here," and firmly played down the notion that they might one day come to turn their weapons on Israel.

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Watch Jim Jones, he breaks stalemates
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by David Ignatius - (Opinion) December 6, 2008 - 1:00am

For a preview of how General Jim Jones will operate as national security adviser in the incoming Obama administration, it's useful to look at his performance as special envoy on Middle East security for the outgoing Bush administration. His effort there has helped yield one of the few recent success stories in the grinding Israeli-Palestinian stalemate.

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Palestinians recount abuses in West Bank jails
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Alastair MacDonald - December 4, 2008 - 1:00am

Allegations of torture, arbitrary arrest and other abuses of due legal process have long been common from Palestinians in the West Bank. But lately more such accusations are leveled not at Israeli occupying forces but at fellow Palestinians, part of the bitter factional rivalry that has divided families and made the two Palestinian territories fiefdoms of the warring camps -- Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip and secular Fatah in the West Bank.

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