Stakes are high in Mideast peace talks
Media Mention of ATFP In The Boston Globe - August 25, 2010 - 12:00am

The United States will host the launch of direct peace negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Washington early next month, a diplomatic breakthrough for the Obama administration, which has invested much of the president’s global political capital in an attempt to broker peace in the Middle East.

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Palestinians warn Israel peace talks could be quickly derailed
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - August 25, 2010 - 12:00am

For more than a year, the Palestinians insisted on an Israeli settlement freeze as a precondition to entering direct talks with Israel. But recently they dropped their demand, paving the way for the first direct peace talks with the Israelis since early 2009. Or did they?

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Prospects bleak for peace deal- Israel's Lieberman
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Jeffrey Heller - August 25, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel and the Palestinians have virtually no chance of reaching a peace deal within the one-year target set by the United States, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Wednesday. "I think there's room to lower expectations and get real," Lieberman, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, told Israel Radio. "There's no magic recipe ... that can bring us within a year to a permanent agreement resulting in the end of the conflict and the solution of all of the complicated issues, such as refugees, Jerusalem and Jewish settlement," he said.

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After the Middle East peace talks fail
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Carlo Strenger - (Opinion) August 25, 2010 - 12:00am

Binyamin Netanyahu has scored a diplomatic victory, as many pundits have pointed out, because the US administration has shifted pressure from Israel to the Palestinians and coaxed them into direct talks with Israel. He probably assumes that the talks will fail because the Palestinians will walk out at some point, and then he will have a case for maintaining the status quo. But such a victory would be hollow.

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US 'mindful' of Palestinian stance on settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 24, 2010 - 12:00am

The US said it remained "mindful" of the Palestinian position on an end to settlement construction, a State Department spokesman said Monday. US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters that Israel's temporary moratorium, which expires three weeks after talks launch, would be up for discussion when leaders meet on 2 September. "We’re very mindful of the importance the issue is within the negotiation. That’s why we want to get in the negotiation. None of these issues can be resolved outside of this negotiation," Crowley said.

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Direct talks, yes, but with state-building too
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from NOW Lebanon
by Hussein Ibish - August 24, 2010 - 12:00am

The resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in early September offers significant opportunities and pitfalls for all parties. For the Obama administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement of the talks represents the culmination of almost a year of intensive diplomacy. Whether or not the United States has a backup plan if talks founder is entirely unclear. The administration’s assumption appears to be that direct talks will generate their own dynamics; but if they don’t, it’s not evident what the next American step will be.

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Discrimination from within and without
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Bassem Eid - (Opinion) August 24, 2010 - 12:00am

Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, wrote a timely report last month entitled “Are the Palestinians Building A State?” His paper discussed the Palestinian Authority under Salam Fayyad and his claims to be building the institutional apparatus necessary for a Palestinian state. The report acknowledged that he is “unmistakably doing so in an authoritarian context.”

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Editorial: Trying again
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

It has taken Herculean efforts by the Obama administration to bring Israel and the Palestinian Authority together for direct talks, including a diplomatic sleight of hand. Indeed, Israelis and Palestinians are entering the talks next month based on different working assumptions.

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Peace talks are doomed before they even begin
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

In theory, the premise of the direct talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis is almost utopian. According to the brief, released by the Quartet — the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — the negotiations would last for one year and are supposed to "resolve all final status issues".

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Mideast talks offer promise, peril for Obama
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico
by Carol E. Lee, Laura Rozen, Ben Smith - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement Friday of new direct Middle East peace talks will renew the sense of opportunity that had faded as the regional stalemate hardened. But the talks also renew the political peril for President Barack Obama, who once again is in the position of pledging progress that's easier to promise than to deliver.

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