Buying Into Palestinian Statehood
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Yossi Alpher, Colette Avital, Shlomo Gazit, Mark Heller - (Opinion) June 24, 2011 - 12:00am

TEL AVIV — Instead of wasting time and energy trying to revive a moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the United States and European Union should take another look at the Palestinian initiative to seek U.N. recognition in September. What is described in some quarters as a recipe for new strife and confrontation can actually be leveraged into a win-win situation for Israelis, Palestinians and the world.

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Peace, cottage cheese and the dentist
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yoel Marcus - (Opinion) June 24, 2011 - 12:00am

The Israelis and the Palestinians are alike in their inexplicable fear of the dentist. They postpone one appointment after another with various excuses, knowing in their hearts that their teeth will not improve. They avoid the painful operation, but in the end the inevitable will happen. It will be both painful and expensive.

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Change the coalition
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yehuda Ben Meir - (Opinion) June 23, 2011 - 12:00am

A book can be written about errors made by the Israeli left, about its exaggerated or extremist approaches, and its estrangement from reality. At first, the left's blunders really do not seem like anything anyone has to fret too much about. But the lamentable thing is that the left's stances and statements drive large sectors of the Israeli public away from moderate, balanced positions.

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Fighting for the right to return
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Ahram
by Mohsen Saleh - (Opinion) June 23, 2011 - 12:00am

When 12-year-old Imad saw his mother preparing some sandwiches for the 15 May march to the southern Lebanese borders with Palestine, he wondered what the food was for. "Will we have the time to eat it," he asked. "Aren't we going to the borders of Palestine to fight the Israelis?" The message this child and his peers conveyed gave the event another dimension, for these marches of return to the borders with Palestine, occupied in 1948 and becoming Israel, have turned into landmarks in the Palestinian approach to the right of the Palestinians to return to their homeland.

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Arab autocrats suit Israel perfectly
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Faisal Al Qasim - (Opinion) June 23, 2011 - 12:00am

Never take Israeli criticism of Arab dictatorships seriously. It is just for media consumption. In actual fact Israel would hate to see Arab dictators go as they suit it best. That is why the Israeli, together with the Iranian and other Arab lobbies are working constantly hard these days behind the scenes to prop up endangered despotic Arab regimes.

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A Palestinian deal cannot be won if Abbas keeps crying wolf
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Tony Karon - (Opinion) June 22, 2011 - 12:00am

Perhaps, as a youth, President Mahmoud Abbas was never told the parable of the boy who cried wolf. I suggest this because the Palestinian Authority leader has with such monotonous regularity brandished the threat to quit his job that he appears to believe it is a vital weapon in the Palestinian diplomatic arsenal.

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A devil’s advocate view of ‘new’ Mideast
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Ely Karmon - (Opinion) June 22, 2011 - 12:00am

In several recent articles I stated that if Egypt and Syria were to follow the “Turkish model,” as proposed by some Arab leaders and Western experts, the real beneficiary of the Arab uprisings would be Turkey, with its Ottoman heritage of control of the Levant and North Africa. If Islamist movements take power in major Arab states, we could witness the emergence of a Sunni Middle Eastern bloc dominated by Turkey – a strong Muslim revisionist state at the edge of Europe with aspirations to extend its influence toward the West.

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Israel's deputy FM says ready to sit for talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
June 22, 2011 - 12:00am

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israel's deputy foreign minister said Wednesday that "Israel has recognized a Palestinian state and is ready to sit with the Palestinians to reach an understanding on the condition that there will be no outside intervention by the UN." "The Israeli government is ready to discuss all of the details with the Palestinians as long as they don't go to the UN; this is a path that leads toward disaster and will put an end to Oslo Accords," Danny Ayalon said in an interview with Ma'an television.

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The morning after the UN vote
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Daoud Kuttab - (Opinion) June 21, 2011 - 12:00am

The Palestinian strategy to attain statehood is making significant progress in certain international political circles, but still lacks the necessary coordination and cohesion to bear the desired results. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have succeeded in unleashing the usual anti-Palestinian arsenal that Israeli hasbara has been using on Palestinian aspirations.

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Ashkenazi: Palestine is inevitable, UN state bid is not
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
June 20, 2011 - 12:00am

Former IDF chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said that a Palestinian state is "inevitable," and that Israel must take an active stance in seeking to reengage the Palestinian leadership in order to avoid a unilaterally declared Palestine in the UN this September, Army Radio reported Monday. Speaking at an event in Toronto, Ashkenazi said that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government could still avoid the UN Palestinian state bid if Israel opened up negotiations again with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

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