Mideast Dream Team? Not Quite
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Roger Cohen - (Opinion) January 11, 2009 - 1:00am

The Obama team is tight with information, but I’ve got the scoop on the senior advisers he’s gathered to push a new Middle East policy as the Gaza war rages: Shibley Telhami, Vali Nasr, Fawaz Gerges, Fouad Moughrabi and James Zogby. This group of distinguished Arab-American and Iranian-American scholars, with wide regional experience, is intended to signal a U.S. willingness to think anew about the Middle East, with greater cultural sensitivity to both sides, and a keen eye on whether uncritical support for Israel has been helpful.

»

The hundred years' war
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
(Editorial) January 8, 2009 - 1:00am

WITH luck, the destructive two-week battle between Israel and Hamas may soon draw to an end. But how long before the century-long war between Arabs and Jews in Palestine follows suit? It is hard to believe that this will happen any time soon. Consider: Israel’s current operation, “Cast Lead”, marks the fourth time Israel has fought its way into Gaza. It almost captured Gaza (behind a pocket containing a young Egyptian army officer called Gamal Abdul Nasser) in 1948, in the war Israelis know as their war of independence.

»

In the US, Gaza is a different war
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Jazeera English
by Habib Battah - January 5, 2009 - 1:00am

The images of two women on the front page of an edition of The Washington Post last week illustrates how mainstream US media has been reporting Israel's war on Gaza. On the left was a Palestinian mother who had lost five children. On the right was a nearly equally sized picture of an Israeli woman who was distressed by the fighting, according to the caption. As the Palestinian woman cradled the dead body of one child, another infant son, his face blackened and disfigured with bruises, cried beside her. The Israeli woman did not appear to be wounded in any way but also wept.

»

If Obama Is Serious, He should get tough with Israel.
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Newsweek
by Aaron David Miller - January 4, 2009 - 1:00am

Jews worry for a living; their tragic history compels them to do so. In the next few years, there will be plenty to worry about, particularly when it comes to Israel. The current operation in Gaza won't do much to ease these worries or to address Israel's longer-term security needs. The potential for a nuclear Iran, combined with the growing accuracy and lethality of Hamas and Hizbullah rockets, will create tremendous concern. Anxiety may also be provoked by something else: an Obama administration determined to repair America's image and credibility and to reach a deal in the Middle East.

»

Behind Gaza Operation, An Uneasy Triumvirate
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Griff Witte - December 31, 2008 - 1:00am

Three Israeli leaders met in secret Friday to review the plan of attack, according to a government spokesman. The targets had been selected, the warplanes readied. Clear skies were forecast over the Gaza Strip. Hours later, Israeli forces began an aerial assault against the Hamas movement that caught nearly everyone by surprise.

»

Loving The Two-State Solution to Death
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum
by M.J. Rosenberg - December 19, 2008 - 1:00am

It didn’t take long for the “two state solution” to move from the category of radical to banal, but that is what has happened. Today the “two-state solution” is everyone’s favorite remedy. And yet it is farther from realization than ever. Its fate may, in fact, be that rare instance of a concept being killed by kindness.

»

Egyptian intellectuals pay price for curiosity
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Jeffrey Fleishman - December 16, 2008 - 1:00am

It has been a tough peace for Ali Salem. His plays don't have a stage. Intellectuals shun him; the writers union refuses to pay his pension. He sits in a cafe window, typing on his laptop and defending his choice long ago to cross the border into Israel and make friends. Egypt and Israel made peace in 1979, but that treaty remains as agitating to Egyptian artists and intellectuals as a sliver of glass beneath the skin. Most of them don't accept it, and those who do are often vilified, their artistic voices muffled by condemnation.

»

Bibi's Blunders
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New Republic
by Shmuel Rosner - December 12, 2008 - 1:00am

In October, when Tzipi Livni, who had won the race to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as head of Israel's ruling Kadima Party, announced that she was unable to form a governing coalition, you could almost hear the groans coming from across the Atlantic and from European capitals. The reason? Livni's failure to assemble a government means new elections will take place in February.

»

Obama Could End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Counterpunch
by Yinon Cohen, Neve Gordon - December 5, 2008 - 1:00am

As Barack Obama enters the oval office he will face a series of daunting challenges. One of these is confronting the age old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been seriously, yet unsuccessfully, tackled by every American president since Jimmy Carter. The inability to reach a peaceful solution has not only had fatal repercussions for the people residing in Israel and the Occupied Territories, but has also been detrimental to Middle East stability and to vital US interests in the region.

»

Violence by Extremists in the Jewish Settler Movement: A Rising Challenge
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
by Matthew Levitt, Becca Wasser - November 24, 2008 - 8:00pm

Thirteen years after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli security officials are expressing heightened concern that a new wave of violent extremism among fringe elements in the Jewish settler movement threatens not only Palestinian civilians, but also Israeli national security and the future of any potential peace diplomacy. Recent Trends in Violence by a Settler Fringe

»


American Task Force on Palestine - 1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 725, Washington DC 20006 - Telephone: 202-262-0017