Israel alarmed by EU bid to reopen Orient House as part of peace plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - November 30, 2008 - 8:00pm

Israeli officials are deeply concerned over an internal European Union document outlining the EU's plans for advancing an Israeli-Palestinian deal in 2009. Inter alia, it calls for increased pressure on Israel to reopen Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, including Orient House, which formerly served as the Palestinian Authority's headquarters in the city. The document, a copy of which was obtained by Haaretz, was written by the French Foreign Ministry, as France currently occupies the EU's rotating presidency.

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Still talking: Annapolis one year on
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC World News
by Paul Wood - November 26, 2008 - 8:00pm

At dinner in Ramallah recently, amid heaped plates of rice and chicken, a raucous but friendly political debate was going on with the usual arm waving and raised voices. One of those at the table was a tough-looking young officer in an elite unit of the Palestinian security forces. He brandished his forearm, declaring: "If you cut my veins open, the blood will fall on the ground to make the word 'Fatah'". Who was the most important enemy: Hamas or the Israelis, I asked. Hamas, everyone told me. They had to be dealt with before anything else could be accomplished.

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Palestinian Forces Dilute Hebron’s Volatile Brew
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - November 24, 2008 - 8:00pm

It was a scene that revealed both its medieval origins and its contemporary significance. On one side of the concrete schoolyard sat the Rajabi clan, wearing their finest kaffiyeh headdresses. On the other side were the Ajnounis, similarly decked out. These ancient Hebron families had been feuding in the lawlessness of this city, leaving nine dead in recent months. Yet here they were last week, brought together by the newly installed Palestinian security forces, and being obliged to reconcile.

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Rice Visits West Bank City; U.S. Announces Aid
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - November 7, 2008 - 8:00pm

In the first visit by an American secretary of state to the city of Jenin, a once-infamous hub of Palestinian militancy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to strike a positive chord at the close of what will probably be her last official trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories. Ms. Rice has acknowledged that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is unlikely to achieve its goal of an agreement by the end of the year and has devoted this trip to other aspects of the process, chiefly the building of reliable Palestinian institutions in preparation for a state.

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No Mideast Deal Under Bush, White House Says
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Glenn Kessler - November 6, 2008 - 8:00pm

The White House made it official yesterday: There will be no Middle East peace pact on President Bush's watch. The long-shot effort by Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been written off months ago by many analysts in both the region and the United States, but the White House had insisted that a deal remained possible. Yesterday, however, just two days after Barack Obama was elected president, officials confirmed that they will leave the issue to the new president.

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Palestinian unity talks at crossroads - diplomat
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
November 3, 2008 - 8:00pm

Efforts by the Arab world to reconcile the Palestinian Fateh and Hamas factions could be put back for years if unity talks in Cairo next week end without agreement, a diplomat involved in the process said on Monday. The Islamist group Hamas has threatened to boycott the November 10 negotiations unless Fateh halts its “arrests and repression” of Hamas activists in the West Bank and releases some 400 Hamas prisoners it says are held in West Bank jails.

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Advance the dialogue regardless of transition
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Gilead Sher - November 2, 2008 - 8:00pm

Global challenges of economy and security become an ever-growing concern in transition periods such as the present one. In that context, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other geopolitical developments in the Middle East represent a myriad of problems of leadership, legitimacy, continuity and practicability. The concurrent transition among the terms in office of the relevant actors in the arena--the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority--should be meticulously prepared for.

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Palestinian Forces in the Hebron Minefield
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Time
by Tim McGirk - October 27, 2008 - 8:00pm

When Palestinian security forces moved into the lawless West Bank towns of Jenin and Nablus, all they had to worry about were the armed criminal gangs who had been shaking down shopkeepers and stealing cars — it didn't take long to wrest control from the thugs. But Hebron, where 600 Palestinian forces rolled up over the weekend in shiny new white pick-up trucks, is far more dangerous, because it is a stronghold of Hamas and also the base of an extremist Jewish settler community.

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Palestinian forces conduct first raid in Hebron
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
October 27, 2008 - 8:00pm

Newly deployed Palestinian security forces smashed down doors, raided homes and rounded up wanted fugitives early Monday, carrying out their first crackdown since taking up positions around this volatile city over the weekend. Hundreds of men belonging to different Palestinian security forces divided into groups throughout the nearby village of Samoua, holding lists of suspected criminals and loyalists of Hamas. Dressed in civilian clothing or clad in blue, black, green and khaki uniforms, they barged through the doors of the wanted Palestinians and searched their homes.

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US's Dayton Views PA-US Security Coordination, Denies US Targeting HAMAS
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Ayyam
by General Keith Dayton - (Interview) October 26, 2008 - 8:00pm

Interview with General Keith Dayton, the US security coordinator, by Abd-al-Ra'uf Arna'ut; Dayton: These Are the Objectives of My Task, Truth of What I Did in Gaza [Arna'ut] You are very well known in the Palestinian arena, but few people actually know what you do. What do you specifically do?

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