The U.N. Should Accept Palestine as a Full Member State
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Slate
by Katy Waldman - (Opinion) January 4, 2012 - 1:00am

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi is gentle and soft-spoken, as befits a Palestinian leader known for his commitment to nonviolence. Currently Barghouthi, a medical doctor, serves as the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party based in the West Bank that seeks to provide moderate Palestinians with an alternative to what many consider Fatah’s corruption and Hamas’ extremism. “Politics can drive you to wrong decisions and wrong feelings, sometimes,” he told me during our phone conversation last week.

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Jordan: Chief Israeli, Palestinian envoys meet
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Mohammed Daraghmeh - January 3, 2012 - 1:00am

Jordan says the chief Palestinian and Israeli negotiators are meeting for the first time in more than a year. Jordan's Foreign Ministry says Israel's Yitzhak Molcho and Palestinian Saeb Erekat are meeting in the presence of envoys from the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. The pair will later hold a separate meeting alone to exchange positions on key issues of security and borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

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Report: Assad to meet Hamas leadership
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Elior Levy - January 3, 2012 - 1:00am

Syrian President Bashar Assad is expected to meet with Damascus-based representatives of the Palestinian factions in the coming days, including the heads of Hamas, Lebanon's al-Akhbar newspaper reported Tuesday. Assad's relationship with Hamas leadership has been rocky since March 2011, when Syria plunged into civil unrest. The Syrian president expressed his disapproval of Hamas' decision to relocate its politburo to another Arab country. The decision was made following the growing unrest in the country.

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A small sign of progress toward Mideast peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
(Editorial) January 3, 2012 - 1:00am

SOMETHING SURPRISING happened Tuesday in a Middle East diplomatic landscape that most people assumed was frozen over: Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met face-to-face for the first time in 16 months. That they did so was partly to the credit of Jordan’s King Abdullah, who has been working feverishly to restart negotiations, and partly to the credit of the “Quartet,” the diplomatic amalgam of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, which has been pressuring the two sides for months.

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Gaza Premier in Turkey, in First Official Trip Abroad
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Sebnem Arsu, Ethan Bronner - January 2, 2012 - 1:00am

Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister of Gaza, who is making his first official trip abroad since his Islamist movement took over the Palestinian strip in 2007, sought Monday to strengthen ties with the Arab and Muslim world in the wake of regional uprisings that have produced a rise in Islamist political strength. Here in Turkey, where Mr. Haniya arrived after visiting Egypt and Sudan, he was quoted by the semiofficial Anatolian Agency on Monday as saying that “the Arab Spring is turning into an Islamic spring.”

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Lieberman’s fury
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Musa Keilani - (Opinion) January 1, 2012 - 1:00am

It is an understatement to say that Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is hopping mad at some of his European counterparts because of their objective observations about Israel’s practices and policies against not only the Palestinians living under its occupation but also its own Arab citizens.

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UNESCO cuts funds for Palestinian magazine
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Matti Friedman - December 23, 2011 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM — The U.N.'s cultural agency said Friday it is pulling funding for a Palestinian youth magazine that published an article suggesting admiration for Hitler. The magazine, Zayzafouna, published an article in February written by a teenage girl who presented four role models: a medieval Persian mathematician, a modern Egyptian novelist, the Muslim warrior Saladin, and the Nazi leader.

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US: 'Shouting from UN rooftops' won't help peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
December 22, 2011 - 1:00am

The United States on Wednesday addressed the near-complete condemnation of Israeli settlement policy by UN Security Council members the day before and its own vetoes of UNSC resolutions critical of Israel. "Shouting from the rooftops of the Security Council is not going to change the situation on the ground," spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters at the State Department Wednesday. Israelis and Palestinians, she explained, must "get back to the table and settle these issues together, and that's the way we are going to have a lasting, stable peace."

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Lacoste Elysée Prize withdraws sponsorship of prize after Palestine controversy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Maura Judkis - (Analysis) December 22, 2011 - 1:00am

Update 2:30 p.m Lacoste has now withdrawn its sponsorship from the prize. In a press release, they announced: “In light of this situation and to avoid any misunderstanding, Lacoste has decided to cancel once and for all its participation in this event and its support to the Elysée Prize.” Read the company’s full statement at the end of the post. Original post:

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Foreign relations: Everything has been thrown into question
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Roula Khalaf - (Opinion) December 22, 2011 - 1:00am

A senior Israeli official called in journalists for an unusual briefing this month. Arab societies were simply not mature enough to hold free and fair elections, declared Moshe Yaalon; they needed a long period of “education”. Mr Yaalon, a close aide to Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, did not specifically refer to Egypt. But it could not have been far from his mind, since the country had just voted for Islamist parties in the first round of its staggered parliamentary elections.

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