Still not too late to change course
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Blog) December 6, 2010 - 1:00am

In these early days of December, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took time off from his seemingly endless negotiations with both the Obama administration and his own coalition over the terms for a renewed settlement-construction freeze. Netanyahu was totally immersed in Israel's biggest-ever natural disaster, a mega-fire on Mt. Carmel. Friends, neighbors, even semi-enemies--countries as diverse as the Palestinian Authority, Turkey and the United States--all gallantly helped Israel fight the fire.

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Peeking into the abyss
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Blog) December 6, 2010 - 1:00am

There have been contradicting reports about the outcome of ongoing American efforts to resume the peace process, which was launched by the administration in Washington at the beginning of last September and then was undermined by the resumption of full-scale Israeli settlement activities. Since then, two parallel sets of political activities have been underway. First are American contacts with Israel to try to bring about another settlement freeze that might allow talks to continue between Israel and Palestinians.

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Israel and the U.S.: A lopsided relationship
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Andrew J. Bacevich - (Opinion) December 6, 2010 - 1:00am

The widely reported deal negotiated by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — Israel committing itself to a nonrenewable 90-day freeze on settlement activity in return for 20 F-35 fighters and a U.S. promise to block anti-Israel resolutions in the United Nations — illuminates with startling clarity the actual terms of U.S.-Israeli relations.

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Netanyahu, Abbas hold rare phone chat over fires
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Allyn Fisher-Ilan - December 6, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed condolences in a rare telephone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday over the deadly fires raging in northern Israel, Israeli officials said. The two leaders were not believed to have spoken since they last met in September when U.S.-backed peace talks stalled in a spat over Jewish settlement construction.

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‘New language for Middle East peace’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by John V. Whitbeck - December 5, 2010 - 1:00am

The recent passage by Israel's Knesset of a law requiring either a two-thirds Knesset majority or approval by an unprecedented national referendum before Israel can "cede" any land in expanded East Jerusalem to a Palestinian state or any land in the Golan Heights to Syria has been widely recognized as making any "two-state solution", as well as any Israeli-Syrian peace, even more inconceivable than was previously the case. It also highlights the need for a concerted effort by politicians, negotiators and commentators to adopt a new "language of peace".

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Abbas: US proposal for peace talks expected soon
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 5, 2010 - 1:00am

AMMAN (AFP) - A US proposal to bolster troubled Middle East peace talks was expected within days, President Mahmoud Abbas said following a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah II on Sunday. "His majesty and I agreed to continue our cooperation and coordination in light of an expected US position in the coming few days, and we should examine it together," a palace statement quoted Abbas as saying. Abbas did not elaborate. Direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have faltered following the end of a temporary ban on Jewish settlement building in the West Bank.

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Abbas: Last resort _ I'll ask Israel to take over
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Mohammed Daraghmeh - December 4, 2010 - 1:00am

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has warned he may dissolve his self-rule government and ask Israel to resume full control of the West Bank if troubled peace talks fail. Dismantling the Palestinian Authority would be a last resort, Abbas told Palestine TV in an interview broadcast late Friday. However, his comments marked the most explicit warning yet that he's considering a step that could crush lingering hopes for a Mideast peace deal.

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Israel can't be a democracy with two classes of citizens
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) December 3, 2010 - 1:00am

Cracks are emerging in Israel's democracy. A comprehensive survey compiled by the Israel Democracy Institute and reported in yesterday's Haaretz paints a gloomy, worrisome picture whose gist is a lack of understanding of the basic principles of Israel's political system.

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'US committed to peace talks, Israel’s security'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Hilary Leila Krieger - December 3, 2010 - 1:00am

The Obama administration is “fervently” seeking progress in the peace process as it continues talking to Israel to find a formula for moving forward with talks, senior White House adviser David Axelrod told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday evening. “This is a critical juncture and we so fervently want to move forward, to get that two-state solution so that Israel can live in peace and security, and we’re going to keep pressing for that,” he told the Post, speaking ahead of an Israeli Embassy candlelighting ceremony in honor of Hanukka.

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Israeli, Palestinian Ministers Trade Blame for Stalled Peace Process
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by David Rosenberg - December 3, 2010 - 1:00am

Israel Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and his Palestinian counterpart, Economic Minister Dr. Hassan Abu-Libdeh, sought to tackle a host of economic issues in a private meeting in Jerusalem on Wednesday, but the two agreed that economic cooperation couldn’t substitute for a peace agreement.

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