July 30th

Ramallah: Warm welcome for 'Abbas' heir' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Ali Waked - July 30, 2009 - 12:00am Dozens of senior Palestinian Authority officials, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, welcomed senior Fatah official Abu Maher Ghneim to the West Bank city of Ramallah Wednesday, after 40 years in exile in Tunisia. Other senior movement officials, as well as Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, attended the event. Ghneim retuned to Ramallah ahead of the Fatah convention scheduled to take place in Bethlehem on August 4. Abbas called Ghneim's return "another landmark in the Palestinians' fight for liberation and the modernization of the Fatah movement." » Read more

Saudi Rejects Israel Recognition without Withdrawal ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP) July 30, 2009 - 12:00am Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia on Wednesday rebuffed US calls for diplomatic overtures toward Israel and said the Jewish state's settlement expansion is jeopardizing efforts to revive peace talks. "It is Israel that has to move seriously towards the peace process," Saudi foreign ministry spokesman Osama Nugali said. "As we all know, Israel is continuing to take unilateral measures by changing the geographic and demographic facts on the ground, by building settlements and expanding the existing ones," he told AFP. » Read more

Gaza's smuggling tunnels feel impact of Israel-Egypt crackdown ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Avi Issacharoff - July 30, 2009 - 12:00am The smuggling industry into the Gaza Strip is like a long funnel, at one end of which are the tunnels in the Strip and the other is the Sinai Peninsula as far as the Red Sea coast, Israeli intelligence officials say. In recent months Israeli actions against smugglers - according to foreign sources - combined with Egypt's increased willingness to deal with the problem, have begun to produce results. While weapons smuggling has declined, however, the flow of goods in general has turned the tunnels into Gaza's growth industry. » Read more

Denying the Nakba ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat by Ahmad Tibi - (Opinion) July 29, 2009 - 12:00am The battle is not over some road signs or over the status of the Arabic language or over the school curricula for grade three or four; it is a battle over raising awareness and historical accounts. » Read more

Settlers undermining legitimacy of Israel's existence ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Asher Susser - July 30, 2009 - 12:00am The representatives of the settler organizations have recently declared their intention to establish 11 new settlements in the territories, including some, according to media reports, on privately-owned Palestinian land. The operation is being depicted as having been inspired by the 11 tower and stockade communities in the northern Negev that were established just before Yom Kippur in 1946. This is not the first time the settlers have compared their efforts to the settlement activities that provided the foundation for the establishment of the state. » Read more

Israel to transfer cement to Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) July 29, 2009 - 12:00am Israel will transfer cement and other construction materials to Gaza for its reconstruction effort. The decision announced Wednesday was made by Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The hundreds of tons of cement will reportedly be transferred directly to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, bypassing the terrorist Hamas leaders of the coastal strip. It is the first time that Israel has allowed cement, metal pipes and other building material into Gaza since last winter's Operation Cast Lead, Israel had feared that Hamas would use the material for terrorist purposes. » Read more

'Netanyahu freezes East Jerusalem construction' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz July 30, 2009 - 12:00am Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has frozen a project for the construction of some 900 apartments in East Jerusalem, Channel 10 television reported late Wednesday. The report of Netanyahu's order to freeze the project came a day after he held talks in Jerusalem with U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. Netanyahu has been under tremendous pressure from the United States to freeze all construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. » Read more

Tough on Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post (Editorial) July 30, 2009 - 12:00am ONE OF THE MORE striking results of the Obama administration's first six months is that only one country has worse relations with the United States than it did in January: Israel. The new administration has pushed a reset button with Russia and sent new ambassadors to Syria and Venezuela; it has offered olive branches to Cuba and Burma. But for nearly three months it has been locked in a public confrontation with Israel over Jewish housing construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank. To a less visible extent, the two governments also have differed over policy toward Iran. » Read more

Top Fatah leader back in W. Bank after over 40 years in exile ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post July 29, 2009 - 12:00am A Fatah leader returned to the West Bank Wednesday after more than 40 years in exile. Mohammed Ghneim was one of Fatah's last holdouts in the diaspora. Only three of Fatah's two dozen top leaders refused to return with then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to the Palestinian territories after the 1993 Oslo Accords. At the time, Ghneim said he would leave exile in Tunis only to enter a Palestinian state. Recently he relented. On Wednesday, he was greeted in Ramallah by hundreds of activists. He plans to run for a top post at next week's Fatah convention, the first in 20 years. » Read more

Arabs losing hope in Obama's ability to broker Mideast peace ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Ilene Prusher - July 30, 2009 - 12:00am Nearly two months after President Obama's historic address to the Muslim world from Cairo, his administration made a high-profile drive this week to shore up Arab and Israeli support for a comprehensive peace deal. A trio of senior officials – US Mideast envoy George Mitchell, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and US National Security Advisor James Jones – have visited officials throughout the region, with particular emphasis on Israel. » Read more