Israel orders evacuation of Nablus village
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 20, 2010 - 1:00am

Israeli forces have ordered residents of Khirbet Tana, a tiny Palestinian village to the east of Nablus in the northern West Bank, to evacuate their homes and depart the village within the next 24 hours. Israeli forces threatened to confiscate property, including sheep, once the deadline passed. Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian Authority officer following settlement activities in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that Israeli authorities informed residents that their properties would be confiscated if they stayed after warning.

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HRW: Israeli settlements 'displace' Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 20, 2010 - 1:00am

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank lack basic amenities and are effectively being forcibly displaced by discriminatory Israeli policies, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Sunday. The New York-based rights group called on the United States to penalize Israel by withholding from its massive annual aid a sum equal to the amount the state gives in subsidies to West Bank settlements.

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Arab FMs want 'serious offer' on Israel peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 16, 2010 - 1:00am

CAIRO (AFP) - Arab foreign ministers on Wednesday rejected more Palestinian-Israeli peace talks without a "serious offer" and said they will seek a UN Security Council resolution against Israeli settlement building. They announced their decision after meeting Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo and US Middle East envoy George Mitchell vowing "substantive" talks with Israel and the Palestinians to rescue the battered peace process.

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Israel approves construction for Jerusalem yeshiva
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 16, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) -- Israel's Jerusalem Municipality approved for construction an additional 24 housing units near the ultra-Orthodox center Beit Orot in occupied East Jerusalem, Israel Radio reported Thursday. The organization's website confirmed the report, but said there were only 18 units under construction, all designed as "housing for married students and to enhance the development of the educational complex."

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Israeli forces demolish 2 homes under construction in Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 14, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Two Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, both under construction, were demolished by Israeli forces on Tuesday morning, as bulldozers executed demolition orders stating the homes lacked permits. The homes, in the Ras Al-Amud and Sur Bahir neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem, were two of an estimated 60,000 with standing demolition orders authorized by the Israeli courts on request from the municipality.

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EU keeps up pressure for Israeli settlement freeze
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Alertnet
by Justyna Pawlak - December 14, 2010 - 1:00am

The European Union pressed the Israeli government on Monday to freeze settlement building, offered the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip more aid and urged Israel to open Gaza's border crossings more fully to increase trade. EU foreign ministers "noted with regret" Israel's failure to extend a moratorium on construction of Jewish settlements, and took a stand at odds with the decision by the United States to drop efforts to persuade Israel to freeze settlement building.

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Abbas, Mitchell meet amid US efforts to renew peace talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
December 14, 2010 - 1:00am

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and US Mideast envoy George Mitchell were meeting in Ramallah on Tuesday afternoon, amid US efforts to renew stalled peace talks. Mitchell met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday night, and is set to travel to Doha and then back to Washington after the Abbas meeting. Mitchell arrived back in the region on Monday to discuss the core issues separately with each side in the hope that gaps could be narrowed and direct negotiations restarted.

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Not walking away from peace just yet
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from NOW Lebanon
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) December 14, 2010 - 1:00am

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech at the Brookings Institution on December 10 has again shown that the Obama administration is not willing to walk away from efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in spite of the obstacles and setbacks it is facing. The position Clinton laid out presents an important potential opportunity for Palestinians to make the point that they are ready for and serious about peace, and to test Israel’s willingness.

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Obama's dose of reality may be a cure for the Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
December 13, 2010 - 1:00am

The Obama administration's announcement that it had capitulated before Israeli recalcitrance on a settlement freeze should be read as a cry for help. Mr Obama has, in fact, taken a bold step in acknowledging frankly that he has a problem. He has been repeating the rituals and catechisms of the failed Oslo peace process in the hope of producing a different outcome. Now, he's been forced to acknowledge that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a communication problem that can be solved by simply getting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas to talk.

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Palestinians express doubts over 2-state future
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Tia Goldenberg - (Analysis) December 12, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM — Conventional wisdom on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking has long held that Israel should relinquish most of the lands it occupied in 1967 in favor of a Palestinian state — the "two-state solution" that much of the world has supported for years.

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