US meets with Israeli, Palestinian negotiators
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
January 14, 2011 - 1:00am

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell met separately on Thursday with Israeli and Palestinian envoys as part of Washington's bid to revive peace negotiations, the State Department said. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said Mitchell met first with Palestinian envoy Saeb Erakat and then with Israel's Yitzhak Molcho. Direct talks began on September 2, but stalled three weeks later with the end of an Israeli moratorium on settlement building. The Palestinians refuse to talk while Israel continues building.

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Obama forming Mideast 'task force'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Yitzhak Benhorin - January 14, 2011 - 1:00am

As chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's emissary Yitzhak Molcho continue their separate talks in Washington with US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, the Obama administration is looking for new ideas to jumpstart the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The POLITICO website reported Thursday that the Obama administration is seeking new ideas from diplomats and former administration officials familiar with the Mideast conflict and on how to advance the peace process.

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Clinton: Israel makes its own decisions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Matthew Lee - January 13, 2011 - 1:00am

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged the limits of U.S. power Thursday in a combative exchange with an Al-Jazeera reporter, saying, "We can't stop a lot of countries from doing things that we disagree with and we speak out against." In the Qatari capital of Doha for a regional development conference, Clinton was asked why Arab countries should listen to her criticism when the U.S. can't even get its longtime ally, Israel, to make peace with the Palestinians. "Israel is a sovereign country and it makes its own decisions," Clinton responded.

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Abbas: U.S. not working hard enough for Palestinian state
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
January 13, 2011 - 1:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday accused the United States of lagging in its commitment to seeing the establishment of a Palestinian state. Abbas told Al-Jazeera that the Palestinians would agree to return to peace talks with Israel only if the United States agreed to recognize a state within 1967 borders and adhere to security accords reached during the Bush administration. Fielding criticism to the same regard in Doha, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters that the U.S. was determined to work toward achieving a separate state for the Palestinians.

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White House seeks new ideas about Mideast peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico
by Laura Rozen - January 13, 2011 - 1:00am

With U.S. Middle East peace efforts at an impasse, the Obama administration has sought new ideas from outside experts on how to advance the peace process. One task force has been convened by Sandy Berger and Stephen Hadley, former national security advisers to Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, respectively, to offer recommendations on the Middle East peace process to the National Security Council.

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Toward defending Israel, mainstream U.S. Jewish groups critique it
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ron Kampeas - January 11, 2011 - 1:00am

Enmeshed in the battle against Israel’s delegitimization, mainstream American Jewish organizations are embracing a strategy of acknowledging what’s wrong about Israel as a way of getting across what’s right about the nation.

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Money can't buy love from Netanyahu
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) January 5, 2011 - 1:00am

An "unbreakable" bond doesn't have to be inflexible. This holds in any marriage, and it's especially true for the United States and Israel, a relationship that is quickly becoming abusive. The prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement to the Knesset on Monday that he was ready to extend a settlement freeze in the West Bank late last year, and that it was Washington who got cold feet, was the political equivalent of tossing an old friend under the proverbial bus.

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Wanted: Adult Supervision
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy
by Aaron David Miller - (Opinion) January 5, 2011 - 1:00am

Call me a foreign-policy geezer, a traditionalist from back in the day. But when it comes to conducting the affairs of the country abroad, particularly toward the seemingly endless, seemingly intractable Arab-Israeli peace process, one historically proven bureaucratic model trumps all others: the willful president empowering the strong secretary of state who, in turn, runs everything.

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US Homeland Security chief in Israel for working visit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
January 5, 2011 - 1:00am

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano met with the Israeli president and other senior officials on Tuesday during a two-day working visit discussing Israel's homeland security threats and strategies. Napolitano's first stop was with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Presidential Residence in Jerusalem on Tuesday morning, where the two held what Peres' office described as a "working diplomatic meeting", that included improving strategic cooperation between the two countries, and the peace process.

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Israel’s Iron Dome Anti-Missile Project Facing Fire at Home and Delayed Funding From U.S.
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Matthew Gutman, Nathan Jeffay - January 4, 2011 - 1:00am

It has been promoted as a cutting-edge technological marvel and marketed as the ultimate solution to the misery Israeli civilians experienced facing rocket attacks from Gaza militants. But as the Iron Dome rocket defense system moves into its final stages of development, Israelis are questioning its effectiveness, and American lawmakers are seeking assurances that the system they are poised to fund will indeed be used to protect citizens in the battered Negev city of Sderot, close by Gaza, and not just used to defend military bases.

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