The Success That Failed
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Roger Cohen - (Opinion) February 14, 2013 - 1:00am

The most progressive and innovative Palestinian thinker on a Middle East peace settlement has been steadily isolated over the past several years. Undercut by Israel, undermined by his own people’s factionalism, unable to meet even once with President Obama, this dynamic Palestinian leader is now close to the end of his rope.

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Palestinian prisoners in Israel go on hunger-strike
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
February 14, 2013 - 1:00am

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel went on a one-day hunger strike Thursday in solidarity with six mates who have been fasting for months. The Ramallah-based Palestinian Prisoner' Club said in a statement that 360 prisoners in three Israeli jails have gone on the hunger strike, and that most of them are affiliated to Islamic Jihad movement. All Palestinian prisoners in Israel, totaling up to some 4,500, will join the hunger strikers on Tuesday, the statement added.

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Election body: 70,000 register to vote in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 13, 2013 - 1:00am

Around 70,000 people have registered to vote in the Gaza Strip since the Central Elections Commission began updating the electoral roll two days ago, a statement from the group said Wednesday. Some 257 registration centers will be open for one week to update the electoral roll in the Gaza Strip, with an estimated 350,000 unregistered eligible voters living in Gaza. The roll has not been updated in Gaza since Jan. 2005 and the operation of the CEC in Gaza is seen as a boost to reconciliation efforts between Fatah and Hamas.

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Abbas to issue decrees on elections, unity govt
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 13, 2013 - 1:00am

President Mahmoud Abbas will issue decrees announcing elections and declaring a new unity government, a senior Fatah official said Tuesday. At a news conference in Ramallah, Azzam al-Ahmad said the two decrees would be issued at the same time. Abbas has already started consultations to form a unity government of technocrats, which will be sworn when the Central Elections Commission finishing updated the voter registry, by the end of March, al-Azzam told reporters.

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Hamas, Fatah ‘not serious about reconciliation’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Nasouh Nazzal - February 13, 2013 - 1:00am

Palestinian rival factions Fatah and Hamas are not serious about achieving Palestinian internal unity and the recent Cairo meetings were only aimed at appeasing the Palestinian street, said a senior Palestinian official.

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Status quo of Israel’s West Bank occupation is catastrophic illusion
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Carlo Strenger - (Opinion) February 13, 2013 - 1:00am

Obviously Israel’s political attention is focused on the ongoing negotiations for the next coalition. This may be the reason why one of the most important opinion pieces that have been published here in the last years went all but unnoticed, Ruth Gavison’s ‘By Ignoring International Law Israel only Hurts itself’. 

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PLO officials say expectations low for Obama visit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 12, 2013 - 1:00am

Palestinian officials said Tuesday that the upcoming visit by US President Barack Obama is unlikely to aid the peace process. Obama plans to visit the region in spring, a White House official said last week, in his first trip to the region since taking office. Secretary-General of Palestinian People's Party Bassam al-Salhi told Ma'an that the visit may create the "illusion" of returning to negotiations, but would have no impact on the peace process as Israel has consistently violated its principles, with US complicity.

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Palestine’s Democratic Deficit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by David Keyes - (Opinion) February 12, 2013 - 1:00am

LAST week, a 26-year-old Palestinian activist, Anas Awwad, was sentenced in absentia by a court in Nablus, the West Bank, to one year in prison for “extending his tongue” against the Palestinian Authority’s president, 

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Palestinian Spokeswoman Urges Obama: Don’t Miss Opportunity
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Felice Friedson - (Interview) February 12, 2013 - 1:00am

  TML:  Nour, how did you get into this position? It’s the first time that a woman is carrying this weight…  

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Why a Palestinian settlement is elusive
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Lihi Ben Shitrit, Mahmoud Jaraba - (Editorial) February 12, 2013 - 1:00am

In recent weeks Fatah and Hamas celebrated their movements’ founding in Gaza and the West Bank. It was the first time since the Hamas-Fatah rift of 2007 that thousands of Hamas supporters were allowed to rally in the West Bank in mid-December and thousands of Fatah supporters were able to show open support for Fatah in the Hamas stronghold of Gaza in early January. On Jan.

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