August 23rd

In New Mideast Talks, A Small Victory For U.S. ATFP World Press Roundup Article from National Public Radio (NPR) by Michele Kelemen - August 21, 2010 - 12:00am The Obama administration has set the date for the first direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in two years, a small diplomatic victory for an administration that made Arab-Israeli peace an early priority. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have been invited to the White House on Sept.1. They will be joined by Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. » Read more

Mideast talks offer promise, peril for Obama ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico by Carol E. Lee, Laura Rozen, Ben Smith - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement Friday of new direct Middle East peace talks will renew the sense of opportunity that had faded as the regional stalemate hardened. But the talks also renew the political peril for President Barack Obama, who once again is in the position of pledging progress that's easier to promise than to deliver. » Read more

Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks: What Will Help, Hinder? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from PBS August 20, 2010 - 12:00am Transcript JEFFREY BROWN: And to talk about the talks, we go to David Makovsky, senior fellow at the Washington Institute and co-author of the book "Myths, Illusions and Peace," and Ghaith Al-Omari, advocacy director at the American Task Force on Palestine and a fellow at the Center for American Progress. He is a former aide to President Abbas. Ghaith al Omari, what is your answer to the question posed at the announcement today, why now? » Read more

Palestinians set their crosshairs on educational reform ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star by Hussein Ibish - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am In an important new move, the Palestinian Authority has recently begun highlighting education as one of the main centerpieces in the next phase of the state and institution building program. Under the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas, the PA understands that an effective and progressive educational system is essential for economic and social development, building a functional state, and laying the groundwork for peace with Israel. » Read more

Mideast talks ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News August 22, 2010 - 12:00am When Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu come face to face for dinner and talks in Washington, we know where they’re coming from. They will meet a decade after the last real final-status talks, 20 months after the last direct talks and after around three months of largely futile indirect negotiations. » Read more

Peace talks are doomed before they even begin ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News August 23, 2010 - 12:00am In theory, the premise of the direct talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis is almost utopian. According to the brief, released by the Quartet — the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — the negotiations would last for one year and are supposed to "resolve all final status issues". » Read more

Activists created 'fictitious' graves in Mamilla cemetery, say Israeli authorities ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National August 23, 2010 - 12:00am A political battle over a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem that began with charges of insensitivity levelled at plans for building on the site has spread into a more curious fight about whether hundreds of nearby tombstones are even real. The Mamilla cemetery had its peace disturbed this month by Israeli bulldozers demolishing gravestones in the middle of the night and by Muslim protests. The once sleepy plot of Muslim gravestones in Jewish west Jerusalem has become a flash point for rival claims to the holy city at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. » Read more

Israeli army's female recruits denounce treatment of Palestinians ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian by Harriet Sherwood - August 22, 2010 - 12:00am It was a single word scrawled on a wall at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that unlocked something deep inside Inbar Michelzon, two years after she had completed compulsory military service in the Israeli Defence Force. The word was "occupation". "I really felt like someone was speaking the unspoken," she recalled last week in a Tel Aviv cafe. "It was really shocking to me. There was graffiti saying, 'end the occupation'. And I felt like, OK, now I can talk about what I saw." » Read more

US gambles on new Middle East talks with no clear plan ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News by Kim Ghattas - August 20, 2010 - 12:00am This time, scepticism is at an all-time high and expectations are low, including for the near term, let alone the ambitious goal set out by Hillary Clinton of resolving all key issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict within a year. The statement by the secretary of state and her special envoy, George Mitchell, was high in aspirations, low on details. » Read more

Editorial: Trying again ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post August 23, 2010 - 12:00am It has taken Herculean efforts by the Obama administration to bring Israel and the Palestinian Authority together for direct talks, including a diplomatic sleight of hand. Indeed, Israelis and Palestinians are entering the talks next month based on different working assumptions. » Read more