Israel Fears Int'l Pressure To Hand Over Gaza Borders To Pa Control
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - January 22, 2008 - 7:15pm

There is growing concern in Israel that the recent tightening of sanctions against the Gaza Strip will result in international pressure to transfer control of the border crossings into the Strip to the Palestinian Authority.

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Is It A Budding Partnership?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Ziad Asali - (Opinion) January 18, 2008 - 6:35pm

Even the most sceptical of us would have to concede that things are better now than they were a few months ago, as they hasten to add that we have been here before and that this too shall pass. Yes, things are better: Palestinian and Israeli officials are talking, and final status issues are being discussed, though they are not being resolved.

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Hamas Police Force Recruits Women In Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Taghreed El-Khodary - January 18, 2008 - 6:28pm

The policemen of Hamas now have company: since the Islamic group took over here last June it has been recruiting policewomen as well. Since mid-August, 60 women have been accepted into the force. Unlike policemen, the women have not played any role in resisting the latest Israeli incursions, instead working mostly on cases that involve dealing with women, like drugs and prostitution, and helping out at police headquarters and the central jail.

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Is It A Budding Partnership?
In Print by Ziad Asali - Gulf News (Opinion) - January 17, 2008 - 1:00am

Even the most skeptical of us would have to concede that things are better now than they were a few months ago, as they hasten to add that we have been here before and that this too shall pass. Yes, things are better: Palestinian and Israeli officials are talking, and final status issues are being discussed, though they are not being resolved.

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Gaza Strike Hardens Hamas Position
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Dan Murphy - January 16, 2008 - 5:20pm

Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas leader widely seen as the strategic mind behind the Islamist movement's successful takeover of the Gaza Strip last summer, struck a defiant tone when asked in an interview last week how long he thinks Hamas can maintain control in the face of an economic blockade and Israeli pressure.

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Israeli Troops Kill Hamas Chief's Son
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Times
by James Hider - January 15, 2008 - 5:57pm

Israeli forces killed 17 Palestinians in an intense battle today, including the son of Mahmoud Zahar, the hardline leader of Hamas. A Palestinian sniper also shot dead a volunteer from Ecuador who was working on a communal farm near the volatile coastal territory. The latest clashes were the most intense since the recent visit by President Bush to push Israel and the Palestinians towards renewed peace talks, and threatened to undermine negotiations.

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Situation Assessment / What Bush Can And Can't Accomplish
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Aluf Benn - January 9, 2008 - 6:26pm

All it took was for the engines of Air Force One to fire up to produce two major breakthroughs in talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The first was the announcement by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that they were willing to start talks dealing with the conflict's core issues. The second was Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman's promise not to cause a coalition crisis by withdrawing from the government during Bush's visit.

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In Isolation, Gazans Dismiss Bush's New Push For Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Dan Murphy - January 9, 2008 - 6:11pm

As Israel and the Palestinian Authority gear up for President Bush's first visit to the Jewish state and the West Bank, in which the president is expected to nudge along a hoped-for peace deal between the two sides, many residents of the isolated Gaza Strip are looking on with anger and cynicism. This densely populated coastal territory has been largely shut off from the outside world since Hamas, the Islamist militant group that the US and Israel consider terrorists, seized control from their rival Fatah here in June.

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Neither Carrot Nor Stick
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) January 8, 2008 - 6:16pm

It is illogical to wait for the day a rocket falls on a kindergarten in Sderot and claims many victims. Every Qassam rocket is a strike on a kindergarten avoided by chance, and every rocket that falls in Israeli territory is a strike against the sovereignty of the state. When the fortification of Sderot against rockets becomes the fortification of Ashkelon against rockets, the lack of logic in the tactic of fortification becomes clear.

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Politics & Policies: Mideast More Unstable
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Middle East Times
by Claude Salhani - (Opinion) January 8, 2008 - 6:07pm

It is under a cloud of heavy pessimism that U.S. President George W. Bush leaves for the Middle East, a region that one former administration official described as today being more dangerous, unstable and problematical for the United States than since before the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the former high-ranking member of the Bush administration said that most of the trends are bad and are not likely to get better anytime soon. "That's the context under which the president departs," he said.

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