Politics Of Illusions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Middle East Times
by Alon Ben-meir - (Opinion) February 7, 2008 - 7:24pm

I have just returned from an extended trip to the Middle East, hoping that I would come back feeling recharged by the progress made in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, especially in the wake of the Annapolis peace conference. To my dismay, not in Israel or in Jordan or in talking to Palestinian and Egyptian officials, have I felt or seen much optimism. Those who still believe that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is possible by the end of 2008 – U.S. President George W. Bush's stated desire – are few and far between.

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Running In Place From Lebanon To Dimona
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) February 5, 2008 - 7:36pm

The suicide bombing in Dimona and the ongoing Qassam rocket fire on Sderot reveal that the "running in place" did not begin and end with the Second Lebanon War. The Winograd Committee asks how it is possible for a war that lasted more than a month to have ended with neither a diplomatic nor military victory. The war against Hamas has been going on for more than seven years, but victory seems about as close as the diplomatic horizon.

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Suicide Bombing Revives Israeli Push To Finish Its Wall
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Ilene Prusher - February 5, 2008 - 7:19pm

In the aftermath of the first Palestinian suicide bombing in more than a year, many Israelis have returned to an old conclusion: build a barrier. Some politicians said that the answer to Monday's attack on the southern town of Dimona was to resurrect an existing, but never-implemented, plan to build some combination of a wall and fence between Egypt and Israel. The barrier would be similar to the West Bank wall that Israel started erecting more than six years ago, at a time when there was an almost nonstop cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

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Palestinians Urge For Early Presidential Ballot
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Angus Reid Global Monitor
February 4, 2008 - 7:45pm

The vast majority of people in the Gaza Strip and West Bank believe a change of government is necessary, according to a poll by An-Najah National University. 65.1 per cent of respondents support conducting an early presidential election, and 52.4 per cent would dissolve the Palestinian Legislative Council.

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Palestinian Majority Opposes Rocket Attacks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Angus Reid Global Monitor
February 1, 2008 - 6:38pm

Many residents of the Palestinian Territories believe a series of rocket attacks launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel should stop, according to a poll by An-Najah National University. 52.7 per cent of respondents share this view.

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Olmert Walks Friendless On Road From Annapolis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Philip Stephens - (Opinion) February 1, 2008 - 6:33pm

Before I visited Israel the other day, some of my friends in the foreign policy community had admonished me for being overly pessimistic about the new road map drawn at Annapolis for a Middle East peace.

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A Fight For Life In A Power Struggle
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald Macintyre - January 30, 2008 - 5:51pm

It's 8pm on Monday evening and the Aseli family is in full emergency mode. The power has just gone down in their apartment – for the second time that day – blacking out the lights and the electric heater.

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Bush's Delusions Die In Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Salon.com
by Gary Kamiya - January 30, 2008 - 5:44pm

It was a heart-wrenching story. Hundreds of thousands of people, trapped for endless years in an open-air jail and recently subjected to an airtight siege, blew up their prison wall and poured out to freedom.

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Gaza's Falling Wall Changes Middle East Map For Ever
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
January 28, 2008 - 7:25pm

They came and went in lorries and gas tankers, in flatbed trucks loaded with cattle and sheep, in coaches and mini-buses, loaded by the dozen in the backs of trucks, all shuttling across Gaza's southern border. Four days ago they went on foot like refugees, but yesterday for the first time the trucks drove through and it felt like an unstoppable momentum had been reached.

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January 28, 2008 - Vol. 9, Issue 21
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Americans For Peace Now
by Middle East Peace Report - January 28, 2008 - 7:15pm

Military Escalation is a Boon for Hamas: Even before the breach of the Gaza-Egypt border, the escalation in cross-border attacks between Gaza and Israel had pumped up public support for Hamas. This was the principle finding of a poll conducted in the West Bank and Gaza by the Ramallah-based AWRAD research center, when compared with an AWRAD survey from shortly before the November Annapolis peace conference.

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