President Abbas and Peace Talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
(Editorial) August 11, 2010 - 12:00am

Making peace between Israelis and Palestinians is somewhat like solving a Rubik’s Cube. You get one colored square lined up but the next one just won’t fall into place. So it is now. After three months of American-mediated proximity talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has agreed to direct negotiations on a two-state solution; the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is stubbornly resisting. It is time for him to talk.

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US: Direct talks ‘getting closer’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Khaled Abu Toameh - August 11, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and US envoy George Mitchell on Tuesday failed to reach agreement on the issue of direct talks between the PA and Israel. The two men met in Ramallah to discuss the latest developments surrounding the peace process and US efforts to launch direct talks between the two parties.

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Three times no
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - August 10, 2010 - 12:00am

At the start of his last meeting with George Mitchell at the Muqata'a in Ramallah about three weeks ago, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen ) introduced the American envoy to an unfamiliar person: "I'd like you to meet Yasser al-Masri, a head of the Takamul (Wholeness ) group, which is calling for the establishment of a single state on the land of historical Palestine."

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Abbas to reject direct talks before setting peace references
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
August 10, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will tell the visiting U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell that he will not go to direct talks unless peace references are set, a Palestinian official said Tuesday. Abbas will meet Tuesday with Mitchell in the West Bank city of Ramallah to discuss the efforts made to push forward the stalled peace process. "We reiterated in many occasions that we are ready to jump to direct talks," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told the official Voice of Palestine radio.

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Editorial: Crux of the problem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
(Editorial) August 10, 2010 - 12:00am

When last week the Arab League backed restarting direct peace talks between the Palestinians Authority and Israel, but only when the Palestinians believe the circumstances are right, the response of Hamas was of angry rejection. The movement’s Damascus-based leader Khaled Mashaal not only said that such negotiations were illegitimate, he denied the Arab League’s right to make such a pronouncement.

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The Mideast ‘peace process’ could end in permanent war
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Shlomo Ben-Ami - August 10, 2010 - 12:00am

Twenty years after the Madrid Peace conference, and 10 years after President Bill Clinton’s heroic efforts at Camp David failed to yield a settlement between Israelis and Palestinians, one cannot escape the conclusion that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has become one of the most spectacular deceptions in modern diplomatic history.

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Barak: Peace process will get world off our back
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Atilla Somfalvi - August 10, 2010 - 12:00am

Defense Minister Ehud Barak took advantage of his testimony to the Turkel Committee, probing the deadly Navy raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, to voice political messages as well. "The key for changing Israel's legitimacy, and the ability to get the world off our back, is to restart a comprehensive peace process, to utilize the chance to reach agreements to the fullest, particularly with the Palestinians, despite the difficult price," he said.

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The Negotiations…And Thinking Outside The Box
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Ali Ibrahim - August 10, 2010 - 12:00am

I was struck by what the great writer Anis Mansour said in an interview with Egyptian television. The important thing to draw from the interview was when [Anis Mansour] narrated his experience with the late President Anwar Sadat in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, during Sadat's first visit [to Israel], which shocked both the region and the world.

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US officials optimistic about direct talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Mohammed Daraghmeh - August 10, 2010 - 12:00am

The White House's Mideast envoy failed Tuesday to secure Palestinian agreement to go to direct talks with Israel, but U.S. and Palestinian officials said a possible solution to the standoff is emerging. The U.S. has been calling for a speedy resumption of face-to-face negotiations, with officials citing Sept. 1 as a target date.

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Strategic acumen dictates Abbas' return to direct talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Adel Safty - August 9, 2010 - 12:00am

There is something preposterous in the question that seems to characterise the current stage of the peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: To talk or not to talk directly. The final settlement of conflicts necessarily requires intense and sustained negotiations between the parties to the conflict. And this intensity and sustainability are evidently lacking in the so-called proximity talks in which the parties relay messages to each other through a third party.

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