January 11th, 2012

Mideast rivals should take a page from ANC's playbook
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Tony Karon - (Opinion) January 10, 2012 - 1:00am

Sunday's centenary of the African National Congress (ANC), the South African liberation movement for which I spent a decade of my life fighting apartheid in the 1980s, reminded me of a strange evening in New York in 1997. I'd been chatting at a media party with a well-known hip-hop scribe, who had offered me a ride home in his rented limo. When we began discussing my South Africa experience, he refused to believe that this white boy had been in the ANC.

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Peace Now: Settlement Construction Soared in 2011
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Yair Altman - January 10, 2012 - 1:00am

The past year has seen a 20% rise in construction starts in the West Bank settlements, Peace Now said in a report published Tuesday. According to data by the settlement watchdog, Jewish construction in the West Bank peaked in 2011. It said Israel started construction work on 1,850 new housing units in the West Bank in 2011, a 19% increase from the previous year. The report, entitled "Torpedoing the Two-State Solution," Israel authorized 1,850 building starts for West Bank housing units and said construction continued on another 3,500 West Bank units over the course of 2011.

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No free pass for Israel, Hamas in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Sari Bashi - (Opinion) January 11, 2012 - 1:00am

As an expert in occupation law and the legal status of Gaza, I read with interest Hillel Neuer’s op-ed (“Hamas says Gaza ‘not occupied’; UN disagrees,” January 5) equating continued recognition of the occupation of Gaza with what he terms “Palestinian helplessness.” Neuer calls upon the United Nations to adopt a position reportedly articulated by a Hamas official, namely that Israel’s occupation of Gaza has ended.

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Palestinian Leaders Outraged Over West Bank Construction Data
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Los Angeles Times
by Maher Abukhater - January 11, 2012 - 1:00am

Palestinian leaders voiced outrage Tuesday over a new report that Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank rose 20% last year. The report released by the Peace Now group also says that building on East Jerusalem land seized during the 1967 Middle East War was at the highest level in a decade.

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Is there a peace partner?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Donniel Hartman - (Opinion) January 11, 2012 - 1:00am

As the year 2012 began, Israel and the Palestinians sat down in Jordan and talked for the first time in more than a year. The discussions were prompted by a deadline from the Quartet and accompanied by relative disinterest in both Palestinian and Israeli societies. The conversation may have been substantive or merely warranting the diplomatic phrase, “fruitful.”

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IDF transfer of information to settlers is nothing new
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Zvi Barel - (Opinion) January 11, 2012 - 1:00am

Who has better information: the Israel Defense Forces, which didn't know that a group of right-wing activists planned to cross the border into Jordan last month, or the band of thugs living on West Bank hilltops, who know when the IDF plans to destroy every last hut? The IDF and the Shin Bet security service, which have been unable to determine who is behind the torching of mosques, or those same Jewish terrorists, who get information directly from officers, soldiers and Knesset members about plans for IDF operations against illegal settlement outposts?

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January 10th

NEWS: Israeli and Palestinian officials continue low-key meetings in Jordan. A proposed law in Israel would make it a crime to compare people to Nazis. A right-wing Israeli MK who threw water on a Palestinian MK is suspended from the Knesset for a month. Israel says it's ready to absorb Syrian refugees if the Assad regime falls. The Middle East Quartet has reportedly asked Israel for “confidence building gestures” towards the Palestinians, and PM Netanyahu is reportedly considering such steps. Peace Now says Israel began building 1,850 settlement housing units in the occupied West Bank in 2011. A Hamas leader in Gaza says “the future is ours” because Islamists will come to power throughout the Middle East. Amira Hass looks at how roads are segregated in practice in the occupied territories. COMMENTARY: Hussein Ibish explains why Gaza is still occupied territory. Sefi Rachlevsky says that if Israeli secularists and Arabs all voted, Netanyahu would be out of office. Khaled Abu Toameh says Pres. Abbas is sending conflicting and confusing messages to his own public. Tova Norlen says Israel has to explain what it wants from a peace agreement. Catrina Stewart says a push-back against religiously-driven sexism in Israel has begun. JJ Goldberg says Egypt's new democracy brings important opportunities for Israel. Hussein Shobokshi says Israel remains a national priority in American politics. Abdulateef Al-Mulhim says Saudi Arabia has a major role to play in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Yossi Alpher says 2012 will be a year of reassessment. Ghassan Khatib says nothing driving last year's period of diplomatic stagnation has changed.

A grim staging ground
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) January 10, 2012 - 1:00am

The two main Middle East-related events of 2011 appear to be continuing into the new year. One is the complete stagnation of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, and the other is the roiling wave of Arab revolutions and uprisings, which also carry weighty implications for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

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At best, a year of reassessment
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) January 10, 2012 - 1:00am

The year 2012 will almost certainly not witness any progress toward agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. We'll be lucky if there is no serious backsliding in the form of violence or formal withdrawal from negotiating frameworks. Meanwhile, however, we can and should be making good use of this year to reassess the entire peace process and find ways to reconstitute it in a more useful format. There are multiple reasons for a pessimistic prognosis regarding the year ahead.

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A Saudi-Israeli-Palestinian negotiation table
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Abdulateef Al-Mulhim - (Opinion) January 10, 2012 - 1:00am

The Palestinians met the Israelis in Jordan for the first time in 16 months. And these days there is talk about what is the best solution to end the issue of the Palestinian refugees before the UN withdraws its financial support. In addition to serious talks about a two-state solution. But, the whole world heard this many times before. So, is the Palestinian issue solvable and who can really have a solution? Could it be some one the Israelis never met? Here is my humble opinion:

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