Peace Negotiations | The American Task Force on Palestine

Mideast talks offer promise, peril for Obama
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico
by Carol E. Lee, Laura Rozen, Ben Smith - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement Friday of new direct Middle East peace talks will renew the sense of opportunity that had faded as the regional stalemate hardened. But the talks also renew the political peril for President Barack Obama, who once again is in the position of pledging progress that's easier to promise than to deliver.

Negotiations lack clear terms of reference
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

The recent US-led efforts to resume direct talks, that ended with the two sides agreeing to renew direct negotiations, reminded many observers of US efforts to establish a peace process and Palestinian-Israeli negotiations in the early 1990s, then described as "constructive ambiguity".

Where these negotiations could be useful
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

The resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that is projected for September 2 in Washington serves a number of useful purposes. Sadly, none of them is directly connected to the effort to "resolve all final status issues" trumpeted last Friday in statements by the Quartet and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Palestinians: No talks if settlement freeze ends
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Mohammed Daraghmeh - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

The Palestinian leader has warned President Barack Obama that he will pull out of upcoming peace talks if Israel ends a slowdown of West Bank settlement construction, a Palestinian negotiator said Monday. Direct negotiations aimed at ending the decades-old Mideast conflict are to resume in Washington next week after months of U.S. diplomatic efforts. Both sides seem pessimistic about the talks, their first in 20 months.

In response to vague talks, Jewish groups deliver vague message
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ron Kampeas - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

Two weeks before their launch, the promised renewal of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks has already engendered a first: a joint statement of welcome by mainstream U.S. Jewish and Palestinian groups. "We congratulate the Obama administration on succeeding in getting direct negotiations back on track," said a statement issued jointly on Friday by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the American Task Force on Palestine. "Both parties must now show courage, flexibility and persistence in order to move towards a negotiated end of conflict agreement."

Talks ‘Doable,’ Says Palestinian Official
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

The chief Palestinian negotiator said Monday that he believed reaching an agreement with Israel within a year was “doable,” echoing remarks by the Israeli prime minister a day earlier that a peace agreement would be difficult but “possible.” But the otherwise sharply differing declarations presented as the basis for going into the direct talks, scheduled to start in Washington on Sept. 2, reflect the complexity of the effort required to get the two sides to this point, and the daunting challenges that lie ahead.

WEST BANK: Big obstacles in road to direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Maher Abukhater - (Blog) August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

Even before direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations kick off in Washington on Sept. 2, the road there is littered with political landmines. The Palestinians stated when they agreed on Friday, under U.S. and international pressure, to resume direct negotiations that if Israel resumed settlement construction in the West Bank, the talks would stop.

Editorial: Trying again
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

It has taken Herculean efforts by the Obama administration to bring Israel and the Palestinian Authority together for direct talks, including a diplomatic sleight of hand. Indeed, Israelis and Palestinians are entering the talks next month based on different working assumptions.

How to bolster the coming Mideast peace talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

When Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the US had invited the leaders of Israel and the Palestinians to resume direct peace talks next week, the secretary of State did not mince words about the obstacles to success. “The enemies of peace will keep trying to defeat us and to derail these talks,” she said Aug. 20. That is why the negotiations will need “actions by all sides” to support the process.

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