Jordan criticized for stripping Palestinian rights
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Dale Gavlak - February 1, 2010 - 1:00am

A U.S.-based human rights group criticized Jordan Monday for stripping the citizenship of nearly 3,000 Jordanians of Palestinian origin in recent years. Nearly half the kingdom's 6 million people are of Palestinian origin and Jordan fears that if Palestinians become the majority, it will disrupt the delicate demographic balance. Those concerns have been heightened by some Israeli hard-liners who argue that neighboring Jordan should become the Palestinian state and that more West Bank Palestinians should be pushed into Jordan.

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A binational state? Here?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Alexander Yakobson - (Opinion) January 29, 2010 - 1:00am

Since the division of the land into two viable states is no longer possible, there is no choice - for anyone who believes in equality - but to support a democratic binational state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, claims Meron Benvenisti (Haaretz, January 22).

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Abbas: Palestinians will accept only Jerusalem as our capital
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
January 28, 2010 - 1:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared on Thursday that Palestinians would not accept any alternative to Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, despite other proposals. Abbas told Russian television that Jerusalem should not be divided and that there should be free passage for people of various faiths. The Palestinian leader added it must be made clear what belongs to the Palestinians and what belongs to Israel.

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Arab League chief presses for Palestinian state
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
January 28, 2010 - 1:00am

Arab League chief Amr Moussa said Wednesday that if a Palestinian state is not established soon there will be a single state for Israelis and Palestinians. "We cannot just continue to raise the flag of two states living next to each other in peace," he told a panel on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

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Where the problem lies
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
(Editorial) January 28, 2010 - 1:00am

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is right to warn Europeans that the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, such as it is, is headed for failure. He is also absolutely right in his prescription. Israel is not serious about finding an equitable solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; until such time, talks are pointless. Moreover, while building the institutions of state is an important task and one that Europeans have been particularly keen on supporting, it is not an alternative to ending the occupation. This is a message that Europeans would do well to heed.

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PA issues 2010 state-building budget
Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In Politico - January 27, 2010 - 1:00am

The Palestinian Authority has issued a 2010 budget document laying out a state-building plan. Palestine: Moving Forward: Priority Interventions for 2010, issued this week by the Palestinian Authority finance and planning ministries, is a Palestinian state and institution building program that complements the diplomatic process the Obama administration is trying to revive, the American Task Force for Palestine's Hussein Ibish told POLITICO.

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Palestine must be a secular state
In Print by Hussein Ibish - The Washington Post (Opinion) - January 27, 2010 - 1:00am

As Palestinians press the international community to live up to its commitment to ensuring the establishment of an independent Palestine alongside Israel, conversation is intensifying about the character of this new state. In their own interests, Palestinians should buck the regional trend towards religious politics and ensure, from the outset, that it is firmly and irrevocably a secular state.

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Palestine must be a secular state
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) January 27, 2010 - 1:00am

As Palestinians press the international community to live up to its commitment to ensuring the establishment of an independent Palestine alongside Israel, conversation is intensifying about the character of this new state. In their own interests, Palestinians should buck the regional trend towards religious politics and ensure, from the outset, that it is firmly and irrevocably a secular state.

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Palestinian parliament expires four years after Hamas electoral upset
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Erin Cunningham - January 26, 2010 - 1:00am

Four years after Hamas won an upset victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, prompting swift international sanctions and a Western-led diplomatic boycott, the mandate for the parliament it dominated officially expired on Monday. According to the Palestinian Constitution, new parliamentary elections should have been held Sunday, Jan. 24, in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But continued political division between the West Bank, governed by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA), and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, has delayed the elections indefinitely.

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The perils of certainty
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ibishblog
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) January 23, 2010 - 1:00am

Among the most dangerous aspects of the political culture surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on both sides are glib assertions of inevitable victory and the uninterrogated assumptions that inevitably lie behind them. It's an obvious point, but was brought home to me with some force yesterday when a friend pointed out the following passage from a particularly foolish Arab-American blog:

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