Palestinians' future is in their hands
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Akiva Eldar, Carlo Strenger - (Editorial) December 14, 2010 - 1:00am

The Israel-Palestine conflict has been endlessly long, tragic, filled with wrong decisions on all sides and there are many ways of telling the story. Saeb Erekat, in his recent article on the Palestinian right of return, chooses to begin his story ("narrative" is the fashionable word) with the assassination of Count Bernadotte, the first UN mediator, by Jewish militants commanded by Yitzchak Shamir, later prime minister, in 1948. The implication is clear: Israelis killed justice from the very outset.

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Not walking away from peace just yet
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from NOW Lebanon
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) December 14, 2010 - 1:00am

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech at the Brookings Institution on December 10 has again shown that the Obama administration is not willing to walk away from efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in spite of the obstacles and setbacks it is facing. The position Clinton laid out presents an important potential opportunity for Palestinians to make the point that they are ready for and serious about peace, and to test Israel’s willingness.

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After setback, US resumes Mideast peace push
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Josef Federman - December 13, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM — The U.S. Mideast envoy returned to the region on Monday, seeking to revive troubled peace efforts after a major setback in which Washington abandoned efforts to coax Israel to freeze Jewish settlement in areas Palestinians want for a future state. The envoy, George Mitchell, was expected to push the Israelis and Palestinians for progress on key issues at the heart of their conflict. But in a reflection of the difficulties ahead, Mitchell was being forced to meet separately with the sides during the two-day visit, and expectations for a breakthrough were low.

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In Need of a Strategy and Not Just Tactics!
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by George Semaan - (Opinion) December 13, 2010 - 1:00am

It is one thing for the political process to collapse and for the American administration to fail due to its inability to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is a totally different thing for Washington to leave the region in a state of chaos and vacuum. While a settlement is impossible, or was rendered so by the Israeli right-wing, the United States is not ready to risk seeing the region slide towards the worst, and must at least give the impression that it is still committed to the peace process.

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Fatah, Hamas agree to meet in late December: official
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
December 13, 2010 - 1:00am

RAMALLAH-- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party agreed with Islamic Hamas movement to resume reconciliation dialogue by the end of December, a Fatah official said Monday. The two movements will meet by the end of this month for more discussions of controversial issues between the two rivals, said Azzam Al-Ahmad, a member of the Fatah Central Committee.

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An end to the occupation first
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) December 13, 2010 - 1:00am

Like every year-end, once again they're promising that the next 12 months will be "a decisive year." Fact: Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said that in August 2011, when Prime Minister Salam Fayyad finishes building institutions in the West Bank, the United Nations will recognize the Palestinian state.

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Obama's dose of reality may be a cure for the Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
December 13, 2010 - 1:00am

The Obama administration's announcement that it had capitulated before Israeli recalcitrance on a settlement freeze should be read as a cry for help. Mr Obama has, in fact, taken a bold step in acknowledging frankly that he has a problem. He has been repeating the rituals and catechisms of the failed Oslo peace process in the hope of producing a different outcome. Now, he's been forced to acknowledge that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a communication problem that can be solved by simply getting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas to talk.

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U.S. Middle East Envoy Attempts to Restart Peace Process
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - December 13, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM — After nearly two years of frustration and failure, the Obama administration began its Middle East peace efforts anew on Monday with its special envoy, George J. Mitchell, holding talks here on ways to improve the atmosphere between Israel and the Palestinians and ultimately negotiate over the core issues that separate them.

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A U.N. Plan for Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Robert Wright - (Opinion) December 13, 2010 - 1:00am

The blogger Andrew Sullivan has called America’s policy toward Israel “assisted suicide.” That may be an exaggeration, but on Friday it became less of one. The occasion was a speech by Hillary Clinton, much anticipated after the collapse of talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

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Rough road ahead for new U.S. Mideast peace push
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Alertnet
by Tom Perry - December 12, 2010 - 1:00am

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Neither Israeli nor Palestinian officials showed any enthusiasm on Sunday for a U.S. proposal of a return to indirect peace talks after the swift collapse of face-to-face negotiations. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, looking ahead to Washington's next steps in the troubled peace process, said in a speech on Friday the United States would push for the resolution of the core issues of the six-decade-old conflict.

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