Abbas: Israel remains intransigent
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 15, 2009 - 1:00am

President Mahmoud Abbas told Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leaders that the Palestinian Authority (PA) will return to negotiations once Israel abides by its previous commitments, as well as reiterated that he will not seek reelection. “The PA will restart peace negotiations once Israel halts all settlement construction and recognizes the 1967 borders as the official borders of the future Palestinian state,” Abbas said.

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Akiva Eldar / U.S. tax dollars fund rabbi who excused killing gentile babies
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) December 15, 2009 - 1:00am

The White House condemns the torching of a mosque, yet respectable Americans contribute to a yeshiva whose rabbi said it's okay to kill gentile babies. It is no surprise that the American administration tacitly, if unenthusiastically, accepted the excuse that the map of national priority zones the cabinet approved on Sunday does not violate the decision to freeze construction in the settlements.

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'Recognition of '67 border before talks'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
December 15, 2009 - 1:00am

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday told members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)'s Central Council that he would not be willing to resume peace talks with Israel until the latter stops settlement construction in the West Bank and recognizes the borders of a future Palestinian state, the Chinese News Agency reported. "If settlement activity were to stop completely for a specific period and borders of a [Palestinian] state were declared within the 1967 borders, we would go to negotiations," Abbas said ahead of the meeting in Ramallah.

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Netanyahu not at all serious about peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Hassan Tahsin - (Opinion) December 15, 2009 - 1:00am

PEACE with Palestinians has never been on the agenda of Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu. Nevertheless, he speaks about peace. In his view peace has only one meaning — the total surrender of Palestinians to Israel. In his opinion, all the Palestinians presently living in the occupied territories are terrorists because they demand freedom from Israel; they want East Jerusalem to be the capital of their independent state; they don’t want their children to die of malnutrition; they don’t want to be humiliated by Israeli soldiers or thrown arbitrarily out of their homes and farms.

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Weighing Netanyahu as Peace Maker
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - December 15, 2009 - 1:00am

A month ago, Aluf Benn, a senior columnist at the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote an article that shocked many. He said he believed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party, was seriously interested in making concessions to the Palestinians and coming to an agreement on a two-state solution. Long a foe of Palestinian statehood, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now says he backs the two-state idea.

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Gaza border: Why Egypt is building a steel underground wall
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Sarah A. Topol - December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Reports that Egypt is building a steel underground wall along its border with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip have fueled speculation about what exactly Cairo intends to accomplish with the project, which British newspapers claim is being carried out with the help of the US Army Corps of Engineers.

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A Year of Stalemate, Dashed Hopes in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Voice of America
by Luis Ramirez - December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

2009 saw no resumption of the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Both sides are beginning the New Year at a stalemate over Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and rising tensions over the status of Jerusalem. 2009 began with bombs and rockets as Israel launched a massive assault, Operation Cast Lead, aimed at stopping militants from firing rockets at Israel. During the assault, militants from Gaza continued to fire homemade missiles over the border, exploding in communities of southern Israel.

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Real Settlements and Imagined State
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Husam Itani - (Opinion) December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

The sympathy in the words of Israeli Minister Benny Begin and the attack of settlers against the mosque of the village of Yasuf in the West Bank, in addition to the tepid response to Palestinian efforts aimed at obtaining international recognition of the state which the Palestinian Authority is threatening to declare unilaterally, reveals the depth of the Palestinian predicament and its urgent need for a approach different from that which has proved bankrupt, in and from the side of the two camps dominating the Palestinian scene.

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The ball is now with the international community
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Binyamin Netanyahu's announcement in late November that his government would implement a settlement freeze was not taken seriously by Palestinians, Arabs or other interested and involved parties. Palestinians warned that the announcement amounted to no more than a public relations gimmick aimed at reducing growing international criticism of Israel's settlement expansion policies. Palestinian officials made clear that the Israeli "freeze" did not signal any change to Israeli settlement expansion, which is responsible for preventing the resumption of negotiations.

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The moment of truth
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Issa Samander - December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

The US administration was very quick to announce its appreciation of the Israeli right-wing government's decision to temporarily and partially halt settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories. In doing so, Washington has only shown its weakness. If the US cannot convince Israel even to properly freeze settlement construction in occupied territory, then how will it convince Israel to dismantle settlements? And if that doesn't happen, what then for the two-state solution?

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