August 23rd

Israeli army's female recruits denounce treatment of Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - August 22, 2010 - 12:00am

It was a single word scrawled on a wall at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that unlocked something deep inside Inbar Michelzon, two years after she had completed compulsory military service in the Israeli Defence Force. The word was "occupation". "I really felt like someone was speaking the unspoken," she recalled last week in a Tel Aviv cafe. "It was really shocking to me. There was graffiti saying, 'end the occupation'. And I felt like, OK, now I can talk about what I saw."

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US gambles on new Middle East talks with no clear plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Kim Ghattas - August 20, 2010 - 12:00am

This time, scepticism is at an all-time high and expectations are low, including for the near term, let alone the ambitious goal set out by Hillary Clinton of resolving all key issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict within a year. The statement by the secretary of state and her special envoy, George Mitchell, was high in aspirations, low on details.

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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.

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Those noisy barbarians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Noam Ben Ze'ev - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

Dov Lior, the chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba and Hebron, head of the rabbinical committee in the territories and a power broker in the halls of government, is this country's real prime minister, writer Sefi Rachlevsky said in an op-ed in Haaretz's Hebrew edition last week.

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What West Bank road renovations say about the occupation
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - August 23, 2010 - 12:00am

Whenever I am driving uphill, I nearly always think of Abu Mazen, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. To be more precise, of two sentences he uttered during the sixth Fatah conference a year ago.

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August 20th

Sec. Clinton is expected today to announce direct negotiations to begin in Washington on Sept. 2, and the Quartet to issue a statement saying they can be completed within one year. The UN criticizes Israeli restrictions on Gaza. Israel restricts Palestinian access to Jerusalem during Ramadan. The PLO defends Pres. Abbas' statements recognizing Jewish rights in Israel. The ex-Israeli soldier who posed with Palestinian prisoners says she would gladly kill and slaughter Arabs. Homeless Gazans seize a Hamas building. Anshel Pfeffer says a whole generation of Israelis have grown up seeing the Palestinians as nonhuman. Arab states are not to meeting their pledges to the PA. Mohamad Alasmar says "price tag" settler violence is tolerated by the Israeli authorities. A survey suggests 56% of Jewish Israelis believe "the world is against us." Ron Prosser says Israel will deal with Hamas only when it is not violent. Jesse Rosenfeld says different groups of Palestinians should show more solidarity with each other. Ben White looks at Israel's demand Palestinians recognize it as a "Jewish state." Time looks at the easing of restrictions on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

Is Lebanon Finally Integrating Palestinians?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Time
by Andrew Lee Butters - August 20, 2010 - 12:00am

The profound significance of this week's decision by the Lebanese government to allow Palestinian refugees to work legally in a number of previously off-limits professions lies in their fate until now. Of all the Palestinians who fled or were chased from their homes in what is now Israel upon the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, those who ended up in Lebanon had more reason than most to rue their fate.

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1948 and Israel's deceptive bargaining position
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Salon.com
by Ben White - August 19, 2010 - 12:00am

The refrain from Israeli politicians and the country’s allies and apologists is familiar: There can be no peace deal until the Palestinians "recognize" Israel as "a Jewish state." While this can sound reasonable to the casual listener in the West, this demand actually points to critical flaws in the "peace process" and the way in which the international community approaches the Palestine/Israel question.

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Homeless Gazans seize Hamas government building
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Nidal Al-Mughrabi - August 20, 2010 - 12:00am

Forty families whose houses were destroyed in conflict with Israel took over a building belonging to Gaza's Hamas rulers this week in a sign of dissatisfaction with the Islamist movement's failure to provide shelter. Angered by living in tents for two winters and now baking in the midst of an intense heat wave, the squatters took over the unfinished apartment house and have already resisted one police effort to evict them.

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Joint ATFP-JCPA Statement: Israelis and Palestinians Must Show Courage, Flexibility, Persistence for Peace Talks to Succeed
Press Release - Contact Information: Hussein Ibish - August 20, 2010 - 12:00am

Joint ATFP-JCPA Statement: Israelis and Palestinians Must Show Courage, Flexibility, Persistence for Peace Talks to Succeed



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