An urgent need for intervention
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) July 18, 2011 - 12:00am


Palestinian politicians and analysts were divided in their understanding and evaluation of last week's Quartet failure to agree on a statement promoting the resumption of a Palestinian-Israeli political process. Some Palestinians expressed disappointment and frustration because disagreements within the Quartet that prevented consensus indicate that the international community is not going to be able to help Palestinians and Israelis move forward towards ending the occupation and realizing peace.


Why the Quartet fears the UN track
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) July 18, 2011 - 12:00am


The Quartet failed to find a formula for restarting the peace process because it is either unable or unwilling to recognize that both the Israeli and the Palestinian leaderships are uninterested right now. It failed because all four of its component actors--the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia--are either unable or unwilling to exercise the necessary pressure on the two sides to bring about a viable process.


Ineffective position
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
(Editorial) July 18, 2011 - 12:00am


The recent meeting in Washington of the Quartet, made up of the US, Russia, the EU and the UN, ended without the usual statement calling on the Palestinians and Israelis to resume peace talks. This suggests that there is a rift among the members of the group who are represented by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. Only that could explain why such statement was not issued.


Peace process is crumbling
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Adel Saft - (Opinion) July 18, 2011 - 12:00am


The unrealised peace process recently suffered some setbacks. Last week, the members of the Quartet (US, Russia, UN and the EU) — the driving force behind the peace process — met in Washington. They took stock of the growing gap between the parties and the obvious dead-end the parties and the Quartet had reached.


Palestinians may turn directly to General Assembly to better chances for UN recognition
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - July 17, 2011 - 12:00am


Wishing to avoid an American veto at the Security Council, the Palestinian Authority is considering turning directly to the United Nations General Assembly in September in order to gain international recognition of Palestinian statehood.


The Question of Barghouti: Is He a Mandela or an Arafat?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Time
by Karl Vick - July 17, 2011 - 12:00am


In France, Marwan Barghouti is called "the Palestinian Nelson Mandela," an imprisoned militant turned bookworm who talks of peace when he gets out. In the West Bank and Gaza, many call him the heir to Yasser Arafat, so popular that polls routinely show him winning the presidency of the Palestinian Authority, even while he remains behind bars. Israelis know him as a mass murderer, serving five life sentences for sending suicide bombers to a Tel Aviv fish market and a Jerusalem mall.


Special from Gaza: Factions vow imminent armed uprising
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Masry Al-Youm
July 18, 2011 - 12:00am


GAZA - Leading Islamic Jihad figure Khaled al-Batch is over fifty and has been a part of the Palestinian struggle for years. His organization is deemed a terrorist group not only by the United States and Israel, but also by the rest of the world. The senior official’s activity in the group hasn’t exactly discouraged such a label. He helped orchestrate a series of bombings in Israel that ravaged the country during the outbreak of the Second Intifada. And now Batch, sitting barefoot in his Gaza office, says he’s convinced the Third Palestinian Intifada will erupt in a matter of months.


Palestine must be recognised as a nation
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
(Editorial) July 18, 2011 - 12:00am


It is right that Palestine goes to the United Nations and seeks international recognition as a sovereign state. This is something that should happen without questions and starting that process should not be included in the increasingly bizarre bargaining process between the Palestinians and the ruthless Netanyahu government. The so-called peace process has ground to a complete standstill, and neither the Israelis nor the US government is interested in restarting it.


Lone West Bank pair charged with stopping settler-Palestinian clashes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Hugh Naylor - July 18, 2011 - 12:00am


NABLUS // The job of heading off clashes between Palestinians and Jewish settlers on the outskirts of this venerable West Bank city falls to a small number of employees of the Palestinian Authority's housing and village affairs unit. Two, to be exact. For more than five years, Ghassan Doughlas and his assistant Khader Oweis have toiled to devise ways to support outlying Palestinian villages that bear the brunt of violence from neighbouring Jewish settlements.


Do not speak, do not resist - Israel rules out non-violence
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Jonathan Cook - (Opinion) July 18, 2011 - 12:00am


It was an Arab legislator who made the most telling comment to the Israeli parliament last week as it passed the boycott law, which outlaws calls to boycott Israel or its settlements in the occupied territories. Ahmed Tibi asked: "What is a peace activist or Palestinian allowed to do to oppose the occupation? Is there anything you agree to?" The boycott law is the latest in a series of ever-more draconian laws being introduced by the far-right. The legislation's goal is to intimidate those Israelis who have yet to bow down before the majority-rule mob.



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