Rice: Israel Ready To Discuss Fundamental Issues With Fatah
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Eric Silver - October 22, 2007 - 10:33am

Israeli and Palestinian leaders are expected to start to sketch the contours of a Palestinian state next week. Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, ended a 24-hour shuttle between Jerusalem and Ramallah yesterday, convinced that the two sides were ready to discuss fundamental issues in advance of President Bush's Middle East peace conference, now tentatively planned to take place in Washington in November.

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One Last Try?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum
by M.J. Rosenberg - (Opinion) October 22, 2007 - 10:32am

The Bush administration has unveiled a four-part plan to rescue its overall Middle East policy, from Saudi Arabia to Iran/Iraq and Israel/Palestine.

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Mideast: Bush Revs Up Lemon Of A Peace Policy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Khody Akhavi - October 22, 2007 - 10:29am

Political factions Fatah and Hamas must reconcile in order to pursue a sustainable peace in the Palestinian territories, and if and when a power-sharing agreement is brokered, the international community must be willing to accept it, according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group (ICG)."As long as the Palestinian schism endures, progress is on shaky ground. Security and a credible peace process depend on minimal intra-Palestinian consensus," it said.

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Another Tour Ends Without Solid Plans On Mideast Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Robin Wright - October 22, 2007 - 10:20am

After years of setbacks, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice set out this week to make one more push toward Middle East peace on behalf of an administration that has less than 18 months left in office. She got some polite nibbles, but not yet the big bite needed to ensure that President Bush's call last month for an international meeting of the region's major players will yield substance.

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Rice Backs Appointed Palestinian Premier And Mideast Democracy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Helene Cooper, Steven Erlanger - October 22, 2007 - 10:15am

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, embracing an appointed Palestinian prime minister here in the West Bank, said Thursday that the United States still supported democracy in the Middle East. But she defended the American refusal to recognize the earlier, elected, Hamas-led government.

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Olmert And Abbas 'to Discuss Palestinian State'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Times
by David Byers - October 22, 2007 - 10:05am

Israeli and Palestinian leaders will enter into negotiations on the "fundamental issues" leading to the creation of a future Palestinian state at a Middle East peace conference to be held this autumn, Condoleezza Rice disclosed today. The US Secretary of State told a West Bank press conference that Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, whom she met yesterday, had said he was ready to work with the Palestinians to discuss the contours of a future state.

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A New History Lesson In Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from International Herald Tribune
by Rami G. Khouri - (Opinion) October 22, 2007 - 9:59am

BEIRUT: Here's a little event that may have big implications. The Israeli education ministry has approved a textbook for Arab third graders in Israel that for the first time describes the 1948 war that gave birth to the state of Israel as a "catastrophe" for the indigenous Palestinians and their society. The Palestinians have always referred to 1948 as their nakba, or catastrophic national shattering, dispersal, exile, occupation and disenfranchisement.

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Saudis Courted For Proposed Mideast Summit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Guttman - October 22, 2007 - 9:47am

As the Bush administration begins pushing aggressively for a new Middle East peace conference this fall, there is already a significant gap among Arab, Israeli and American diplomats about what the conference should attempt to achieve.

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Saudi Arabia Says It May Meet Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by David S. Cloud, Helene Cooper - October 22, 2007 - 9:31am

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said Wednesday that his country would consider attending President Bush’s planned Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in the fall, which would put Saudi officials publicly at the same table as their Israeli counterparts for the first time since 1991.

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Time Does Not Take Orders From Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) October 19, 2007 - 8:40pm

The Palestinian partner was born in Oslo in the summer of 1993, and died seven years later at Camp David. Following seven more years of violence, diplomatic stalemate and renewed settlement - and following the disillusionment from the misconception of unilateral moves - the word "partner" is slowly making a comeback.

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