Security Experts Fear New Wave Of Terrorism In Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Speigel International
by Pierre Heumann - February 5, 2008 - 7:22pm

Terrorists struck again in Israel on Monday in the first suicide bombing the country has seen in a year. It was an attack that politicians and military officers say they have seen coming for days. The bloody deed, which claimed the lives of one Israeli woman and the two suicide bombers, came as no surprise for many Israelis. Now that the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt is open, it has become easier for terrorists to reach Israel from Gaza. Security experts have been warning that terrorists in Gaza would see this as a new opportunity -- and would take advantage of it.

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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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Hamas Claims Dimona Attack, Says Bombers Came From Hebron
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amoss Harel - February 4, 2008 - 8:01pm

Hamas' armed wing claimed responsibility for a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed a woman in Dimona on Monday, the first such attack inside Israel claimed by Hamas since 2004, a Hamas source told Reuters. Both the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Bridgade and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack earlier in the day.

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Finally, A Popular Uprising
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - (Opinion) January 30, 2008 - 5:56pm

The fall of the Rafah wall was a fitting combination of planning and the precise reading of the social and political map by the Hamas government, mixed with a mass response to the dictates of the overlord, Israel.

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Underwriting The Conflict In Hebron
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The American Prospect
by Matthew Duss - December 21, 2007 - 3:20pm

On Nov. 18, in the beautifully appointed ballroom of Manhattan's posh Grand Hyatt Hotel at Grand Central Station, the Hebron Fund held its annual fund-raising gala. According to organizers, guests paid upward of $300 a head, with anything above the cost of the dinner considered tax-deductible. The evening began with a reception in an anteroom featuring a buffet of gourmet foods. A chef in a tall hat worked a stir-fry station; another expertly sliced sashimi and rolled sushi. A dessert table overflowed with cakes and chocolate mousse.

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Israelis Cool To An Offer From Hamas On A Truce
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - December 20, 2007 - 4:42pm

Officials in the Israeli prime minister’s office reacted coolly on Wednesday to an indirect approach by the Hamas leader in Gaza offering talks on a truce. The offer was relayed through an Israeli reporter, Sleman al-Shafhe, of Channel 2 television. On a news broadcast on Tuesday night, Mr. Shafhe said Ismail Haniya, the leader of the Hamas government in Gaza, had called him earlier in the day to convey a message to the Israelis.

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After Annapolis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Boston Globe
(Editorial) November 28, 2007 - 3:46pm

No document with principles for a peace accord was signed yesterday in Annapolis, Md., where envoys from 46 countries joined Israeli and Palestinian leaders and President Bush at a gathering meant to launch negotiations on a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So the Annapolis event can only be judged by what follows it. If yesterday's meeting is to become something more than another missed opportunity for Mideast peace, Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans will have to persevere until they forge a just and durable peace agreement.

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Deja Vu, Again
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
(Editorial) November 26, 2007 - 12:58pm

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, said yesterday that he would attend next week's Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. Syria might also attend, although it is not clear at what level. The two last building blocks appear to be in place for an event which will relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace talks for the first time in seven years. The real question is: will any of the noble declarations that we will get next week - from Mahmoud Abbas, Ehud Olmert and George Bush - mean anything?

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Obstacles And Opportunity For Mideast Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Boston Globe
by James Carroll - (Opinion) November 26, 2007 - 12:51pm

Obstacles abound. When representatives of more than 40 nations convene in Annapolis tomorrow, hoping to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, there will be many reasons for pessimism. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas presides over a fractured people, with Hamas ready to spoil any agreement. Qassam rockets fired from Gaza remind Israelis what a hostile Palestinian state could do from the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is politically vulnerable to extremist figures on the Israeli side who want no concessions.

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Peace Is Possible
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Ian Black - (Special Report) November 19, 2007 - 4:40pm

Like so many Palestinians of his generation, Sari Nusseibeh looks back at years of struggle that have achieved precious little. His entire adult life has been spent in the shadow of conflict with Israel and it is difficult to find even a glimmer of optimism that it is going to be resolved any time soon.

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