Palestinian Statehood | The American Task Force on Palestine

News Analysis: New Intifada may not erupt if talks between Israel, PNA fail
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by Saud Abu Ramadan, Emad Drimly - September 30, 2010 - 12:00am

GAZA, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The ten-month moratorium to freeze settlement construction in the West Bank and Jerusalem ended on Sunday. Currently the Israeli government has not offered any statement on whether or not to resume settlement construction. The unclear Israeli stance over the issue of settlement, has left the Palestinian side reluctant to make their mind as they decided to wait until the upcoming meeting of the Arab League (AL) Committee on peace talks with Israel to be held on Oct. 4 in Cairo.

Fayyad signs $40 million World Bank agreement
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
(Analysis) September 30, 2010 - 12:00am

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- World Bank representative Miram Sherman signed an agreement with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Thursday to deliver a $40 million grant to the PA. Fayyad said the grant was aimed at enabling the PA to continue building state institutions and developing the infrastructure for a Palestinian state. During the signing ceremony at Fayyad's Ramallah office, the prime minister thanked the World Bank for empowering the Palestinian state to meet the needs of Palestinians, particularly as the PA worked to complete its state-building initiative.

Negotiating Until the End
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Ali Ibrahim - (Opinion) September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is in a difficult position. The Palestinian negotiators linked the continuation of direction negotiations with Israel – which were launched with great difficulty and are still at an early stage – with an extension to the partial freeze on settlement construction; something that has not materialized from the Israeli side, despite international pressure, in particular from Washington, who are sponsoring the current negotiations.

Obama demands more than Israel can give
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from
by Richard Cohen - (Opinion) September 28, 2010 - 12:00am

Every so often, the sayings of Casey Stengel come to mind. The longtime manager of the New York Yankees, accustomed to a Prussian professionalism in the hitting and fielding of baseballs, moved over to the astonishingly hapless New York Mets in 1962 and, surveying his new team, uttered an exasperated question: "Can't anybody here play this game?" What applied to those Mets applies now to the Obama administration. In the Middle East, it's no hits and plenty of errors.

World leaders criticize Israel for refusing to extend West Bank construction moratorium
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - September 28, 2010 - 12:00am

Reporting from Jerusalem — World leaders Monday criticized Israel's refusal to extend its construction moratorium on the West Bank even after Palestinians threatened to quit Mideast peace talks, but they vowed to prevent the stalled negotiations from collapsing.

In blame game, arrow tilts to Abbas
Media Mention of ATFP In Politico - September 28, 2010 - 12:00am

Israelis and Palestinians have yet to achieve any substantive progress in the nascent peace talks that resulted from President Barack Obama’s high-profile push for negotiations, but a subtle shift in the political balance between the two antagonists seems clear: Israel is now winning the blame game. The blame game always proceeds on a parallel, subterranean track to actual negotiations, the cynical mirror of the process’s insistent optimism. Some prominent figures on both sides barely disguise their assumption that peace talks will fail, as they almost always do.

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