Dennis Ross: Time running out for peace; status quo unsustainable ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Yitzhak Benhorin - February 28, 2011 - 1:00am The Obama Administration's "ongoing strategic discussions with the Israelis have taken on a character, a range of issues, intensity, and a frequency that is simply unprecedented," Dennis Ross told J Street's annual conference on Monday. The White House adviser on Middle East peace issues said that one of the Obama Administration's principles was “an unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security.” » Read more

Poll: Americans still favorable towards Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Yitzhak Benhorin - March 1, 2011 - 1:00am Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu 's relationship may be shaky, the peace process is deadlocked – but Americans still have our backs. The latest Gallup Poll reveals that the majority of Americans, about 63%, continued to rate Israel favorably in 2011. Nearly 17% of Americans favor the Palestinians and 20% are impartial – supporting both sides equally or indifferently. Americans have not been affected by European and global de-legitimization efforts, not even by the apartheid week organized by Israel's adversaries in campuses around the world. » Read more

Barak: We can't let citizens take law into their own hands ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post March 1, 2011 - 1:00am In reaction to clashes that took place a day earlier in the Gilad Farm outpost in Samaria, Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday said that "We can not let citizens take the law into their hands." "These disturbances damage the rule of law in the country," Barak said during a tour of the Givati Brigade's training in the Negev. » Read more

Netanyahu has failed to recognize his weakened status ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Alon Idan - March 1, 2011 - 1:00am Last week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He phoned to say he was disappointed that Germany's had voted for a UN Security Council condemning the settlements. Merkel reportedly responded: "How dare you. You are the one who disappointed us. You haven't made a single step to advance peace." In response to Merkel's aggressive remarks, Netanyahu promised to deliver a new speech about the peace process within two or three weeks. » Read more

Encountering Peace: Learning from J Street ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Gershon Baskin - (Editorial) February 28, 2011 - 1:00am I am writing from Washington DC, where I’m attending the second annual conference of J Street, together with more than 2,000 American Jews from all walks of life, four MKs from Kadima and one from Labor. There are a number of other Israelis representing various peace and human-rights organizations. » Read more

What if Israeli forces treated West Bank settlers like Arabs? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Bradley Burston - February 28, 2011 - 1:00am Around here, you ignore omens only at your peril. The settlement movement knows how the omens have been running for it today. All black. All unexpected. Imagine a sunny day in winter, on which someone brilliant, compassionate, articulate, truly peace-minded, and actually popular, announces candidacy for the head of - of all things - Israel's Labor Party. Unheard of. Absurd. But true. The name is Shelly Yachimovich. » Read more

Swedish FM, in rare move, to spend night in Nablus ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Herb Keinon - March 1, 2011 - 1:00am Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt arrived in Israel Monday for a four day visit that includes a couple out of the ordinary agenda items: sleeping overnight in Nablus, and touring Israel's northern border. Bildt, considered among the most critical foreign ministers of Israeli policy inside the EU, has not been in the country for some two years, having canceled a visit here in the Fall of 2009 because of Israeli anger over his refusal to condemn an article in the Aftonbladet newspaper accusing Israel of killing Palestinians and harvesting their organs. » Read more

Settlers attack West Bank villages following outpost demolitions ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press March 1, 2011 - 1:00am Israeli settlers damaged houses and cars in a Palestinian village in the West Bank on Tuesday, police and witnesses said, in an apparent show of anger over the Israeli demolition of homes in an unauthorized settler outpost. Police say settlers are suspected of smashing windows of seven Palestinian cars and throwing a fire bomb at a Palestinian house. » Read more

Hamas fights UN's 'poisonous' Holocaust lessons in Gazan schools ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian by Harriet Sherwood - (Editorial) February 28, 2011 - 1:00am Hamas has vowed to stop the United Nations teaching children in Gaza about the Holocaust, saying it will poison their minds. The history of the Holocaust is planned to be included as part of a human rights curriculum in schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency, which is responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees. More than 200,000 children attend UNRWA schools in Gaza. Hamas, the Islamist organisation that runs Gaza, has said it will do all it can to stop the teaching of Holocaust studies. » Read more

Hamas accuses Israel of escalation as fragile ceasefire on edge of collapse ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua by Saud Abu Ramadan, Emad Drimly - February 28, 2011 - 1:00am The deposed government of the Islamic Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, on Monday accused Israel of escalating violence against the Palestinians in the coastal enclave as an undeclared fragile ceasefire between military factions and Israel is about to collapse. Taher al-Nouno, spokesman for the Hamas government, told Xinhua that the current Israeli military escalation on the Gaza Strip "is part of the Zionist enemy's nature, where it expresses the internal crisis that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is passing through and the failure of the peace process." » Read more