A 90-Day Bet on Mideast Talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner, Mark Landler - November 14, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM — The pledge by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to push for a new, one-time-only freeze of 90 days on settlement construction in the West Bank represents a bet by the Israelis and the Americans that enough can be accomplished so that the Palestinians will not abandon peace talks even after the freeze ends.

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I Believe I Can Fly
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Thomas L. Friedman - November 13, 2010 - 1:00am

Reading the headlines these days, I can’t help but repeat this truism: If you jump off the top of an 80-story building, for 79 floors you can think you’re flying. It’s the sudden stop at the end that tells you you’re not. It’s striking to me how many leaders and nations are behaving today as though they think they can fly — and ignoring that sudden stop at the end that’s sure to come.

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Fatah official: Talks waste of time
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
November 12, 2010 - 1:00am

The gap between Fatah and Hamas is very big despite the recent commitment to continue talks in Damascus, head of Fatah's unity talks delegation Azzam Al-Ahmad told the Jerusalem-based Al-Quds newspaper Thursday. Outlining the basic divisions, Al-Ahmad said both sides claimed to be in charge of the legitimate security service, with Director of the PA's General Intelligence Majed Faraj and Fatah Central Committee member Sakher Bseiso holding firm on the belief that security services in the West Bank are "complete and legitimate and cannot be restructured,."

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Abbas talks peace process at Arafat memorial
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
November 12, 2010 - 1:00am

Palestinians will not accept Israel's construction of settlements on occupied Palestinian land, President Mahmoud Abbas told a crowd attending a memorial for late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Thursday in Ramallah. "We don't want settlements on our land for they are illegitimate from the beginning. We all are sure that Jerusalem is the Palestinians' capital and the refugees will return," he said to the tens of thousands gathered at the site dedicated to the construction of the Arafat Museum.

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Happy to be proven wrong
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ezzedine Choukri Fishere - (Opinion) November 12, 2010 - 1:00am

It was chilling in Jerusalem in January 2002, and not only because of the weather. The sandbags, the metal detectors, the security guards with their visible guns at entrances to restaurants, malls, hospitals; almost a guard for every door. This was a country seized by a deep sense of threat and disillusionment. In the West Bank, a second winter of heavy repression closed and terrorized villages and towns. Those who had to leave their homes for work, an errand or a family visit, couldn't know when, if, they would come back. This was a whole nation denied hope, and grounded.

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Not only still relevant, but desirable
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Mazal Mualem - (Opinion) November 12, 2010 - 1:00am




Politics Over Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
(Editorial) November 12, 2010 - 1:00am

Early in his most recent tenure, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spent a lot of time trying to persuade President Obama and others that he was serious about making peace with the Palestinians. Only a hard-liner, like him, could pull it off. If only. With the peace process crumbling, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Mr. Netanyahu for seven hours on Thursday. She went in insisting that she still believes that Mr. Netanyahu and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, are “very committed to a two-state solution.” There was no sign of a breakthrough.

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Politics Over Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
(Editorial) November 12, 2010 - 1:00am

Early in his most recent tenure, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spent a lot of time trying to persuade President Obama and others that he was serious about making peace with the Palestinians. Only a hard-liner, like him, could pull it off. If only. With the peace process crumbling, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Mr. Netanyahu for seven hours on Thursday. She went in insisting that she still believes that Mr. Netanyahu and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, are “very committed to a two-state solution.” There was no sign of a breakthrough.

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Lieberman: Israel shouldn't pursue peace talks with Syria
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - November 11, 2010 - 1:00am

Israel should not enter peace negotiations with Syria, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said during a visit to the Golan Heights on Thursday, adding anyone who considered such an option a "political hypochondriac." Israel and Syria held four indirect rounds of peace talks with Turkish mediation in 2008, but they were suspended following the resignation of then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in September that year. Syria said at the time of the Israeli offensive in Gaza at the end of 2008 that it ruled out a resumption of the indirect talks any time soon.

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Lengthy Clinton, Netanyahu meeting fails to revive Mideast peace talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Glenn Kessler - November 11, 2010 - 1:00am

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met in New York with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over a seven-hour period Thursday in an unusually lengthy but apparently unsuccessful attempt to rekindle moribund Middle East peace talks. No breakthroughs were reported. Clinton and Netanyahu's offices issued a joint statement reiterating the two sides' diplomatic boilerplate on peace efforts.

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