Obama's double-or-nothing moment in the Middle East
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Jackson Diehl - December 9, 2010 - 1:00am

The latest collapse of the Middle East peace process has underlined a reality that the Obama administration has resisted since it took office -- that neither the current Israeli government nor the Palestinian Authority shares its passion for moving quickly toward a two-state settlement. And it has left President Obama with a tough choice: quietly shift one of his prized foreign policy priorities to a back burner -- or launch a risky redoubling of U.S. efforts.

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WEST BANK: Palestinian reaction to U.S. reversal on settlement freeze
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Maher Abukhater - December 9, 2010 - 1:00am

Palestinian politicians and analysts said Wednesday that they were not surprised that the U.S. government had failed to get Israel to agree to a temporary settlement freeze as a precondition for resuming Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations. To them, It had only been a matter of time before U.S. officials acknowledged failure.

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U.S. official: Obama does not and will not condone Israel's settlement activity
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Natasha Mozgovaya - December 8, 2010 - 1:00am

The United States does not and will not accept Israel's continued West Bank settlement activity, a top U.S. official said on Monday, stating that the fact that Washington no longer supports a temporary settlement freeze did not mean it condones continued building. The comment by State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley came as U.S. officials had confirmed that negotiations between Jerusalem and Washington over a new partial moratorium on settlement construction and on the terms of the guarantees proposed by U.S. President Barack Obama have hit a dead end.

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U.S. Drops Bid to Sway Israel on Settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Mark Landler - December 8, 2010 - 1:00am

After three weeks of fruitless haggling with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Obama administration has given up its effort to persuade the Israeli government to freeze construction of Jewish settlements for 90 days, a senior administration official said Tuesday. The decision leaves Middle East peace talks in flux, with the Palestinians refusing to resume direct negotiations absent a moratorium, and the United States struggling to find another formula to bring them back to the table. It is another setback in what has proved to be a star-crossed campaign by President Obama.

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U.S. abandons push for renewal of Israeli settlement freeze
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Karen Deyoung - December 8, 2010 - 1:00am

The Obama administration has abandoned its effort to persuade Israel to renew a settlement construction freeze, which U.S. diplomats had hoped would invigorate moribund peace talks with the Palestinians. With senior Israeli and Palestinian negotiators scheduled to hold talks in Washington next week, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton due to deliver a major Middle East speech Friday, it was unclear what direction the administration's policy will now take.

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US admits defeat on Israeli settlement freeze. Can it still broker peace?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - December 8, 2010 - 1:00am

The US admission that it has given up on securing an Israeli settlement freeze, coupled with Latin American's growing support for Palestinian statehood – with or without a peace deal – has pushed the faltering Israeli-Palestinian peace process to the brink. Late yesterday, a senior US diplomat said that the Obama administration, which had made a settlement freeze the kingpin of its peacemaking efforts, had dropped its bid to secure a second moratorium from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose right-wing coalition partners had strongly opposed such a measure.

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Abbas says peace talks with Israel in crisis?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 8, 2010 - 1:00am

President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday said peace talks with Israel were in crisis after Washington's decision to drop its demand for a new freeze on settlement building in the occupied West Bank. "There is no doubt that there is a crisis," Abbas said after his meeting with Prime Minister George Papandreou in Athens. Abbas said he hoped the European Union would get involved in relaunching the negotiations. "We hope that the time will soon come when the EU will play a role alongside the United States."

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Palestinians criticise U.S., peace process in crisis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Alternet
by Tom Perry - December 8, 2010 - 1:00am

The Palestinians said on Wednesday "Israeli obstinacy" made Washington give up on efforts to freeze Jewish settlement and questioned whether the United States could ever help them attain independence. Senior Palestinian official Yasser Abed Rabbo said that with its bid to revive direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations now at a dead-end, the United States was proposing a return to indirect talks to try to unstick a peace process in deep crisis.

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U.S. to hold separate peace talks with Israel, Palestinians: official
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
December 8, 2010 - 1:00am

A senior Palestinian official revealed on Wednesday that the United States informed the Palestinian leadership that it wants to hold separate peace talks with Israel and the Palestinians. "We received an oral letter from the American Administration expressing its desire to hold separate talks with Israel and the Palestinians over the peace process," Yasser Abed Rabbo, Secretary General of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee told Voice of Palestine Radio.

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Middle East peace talks 'crisis' over settlement row
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC World News
December 8, 2010 - 1:00am

His comments come hours after the US admitted that it had failed to get Israel to renew its settlement curbs. Mr Abbas suspended talks in September after a 10-month halt on Israeli building in the occupied West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, expired. The US has vowed to find other ways to bring the two sides together. The peace talks resumed in Washington in September after a break of almost two years, but broke down just weeks later over the settlement issue. US sweeteners

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