Human Rights Watch accuses Palestinian security forces of intimidating journalists. Jessica Montell says Judge Goldstone has not absolved Israel of civilian deaths; Goldstone will visit Israel but won’t seek the nullification of his report; Shlomo Avineri says Israel was wrong to boycott his investigation; Ron Kampeas and Marcy Oster ask what comes next; the Guardian looks at remaining unanswered questions. Café culture is booming in Ramallah. Four Palestinians are wounded in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. The IMF says Palestinian institutions are ready for independence. Jenin is in shock over the murder of a theater director. Pres. Obama says Mideast unrest emphasizes the need for Israeli-Palestinian peace, and Pres. Peres urges him to stick with peace efforts. Israelis rally to the defense of a Palestinian bookseller threatened with deportation from Jerusalem. Israel is lobbying Germany not to recognize Palestine. The EU denounces Israeli settlement expansion in occupied East Jerusalem. A new poll shows large majorities of Palestinians oppose the murder of settlers, support nonviolent protests. The first Palestinian venture fund is up and running. The Media Line looks at tensions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem. The BBC asks if Syrian unrest could spread to Israel. Fatah is investigating reports that Mohammed Dahlan was involved in arms shipments to Qaddafi’s forces in Libya.

Human Rights Watch accuses Palestinian security forces of intimidating journalists. Jessica Montell says Judge Goldstone has not absolved Israel of civilian deaths; Goldstone will visit Israel but won’t seek the nullification of his report; Shlomo Avineri says Israel was wrong to boycott his investigation; Ron Kampeas and Marcy Oster ask what comes next; the Guardian looks at remaining unanswered questions. Café culture is booming in Ramallah. Four Palestinians are wounded in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. The IMF says Palestinian institutions are ready for independence. Jenin is in shock over the murder of a theater director. Pres. Obama says Mideast unrest emphasizes the need for Israeli-Palestinian peace, and Pres. Peres urges him to stick with peace efforts. Israelis rally to the defense of a Palestinian bookseller threatened with deportation from Jerusalem. Israel is lobbying Germany not to recognize Palestine. The EU denounces Israeli settlement expansion in occupied East Jerusalem. A new poll shows large majorities of Palestinians oppose the murder of settlers, support nonviolent protests. The first Palestinian venture fund is up and running. The Media Line looks at tensions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem. The BBC asks if Syrian unrest could spread to Israel. Fatah is investigating reports that Mohammed Dahlan was involved in arms shipments to Qaddafi’s forces in Libya.

EU: Approval of East Jerusalem settlement expansion is deeply disappointing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
April 6, 2011 - 12:00am

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said on Wednesday that she was "deeply disappointed" by Israel's approval of new settlement building in East Jerusalem. "The actions taken by the Israeli Government contravene repeated and urgent calls by the international community, including the Quartet, and run counter to achieving a peaceful solution that will preserve Israel’s security and realize the Palestinians’ right to statehood," Ashton said in a statement released on Wednesday.

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Israel was wrong to boycott Goldstone probe
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Shlomo Avineri - (Opinion) April 6, 2011 - 12:00am

Even after Richard Goldstone retracted his statement that Israel deliberately targeted civilians in Gaza, the diplomatic and moral damage to Israel caused by the Goldstone report will not disappear, just as the Supreme Court's acquittal of Israel Kastner back in the 1950s didn't erase the terrible things said by Judge Benjamin Halevy in the district court ruling. ("He sold his soul to the devil." ) That's the power of metaphors as opposed to dry facts. As far as Israel is concerned, the lesson is simple: It shouldn't boycott international forums, even if they are clearly biased against it.

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Goldstone won't seek Gaza report nullification
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Steven R. Hurst - April 5, 2011 - 12:00am

South African jurist Richard Goldstone said Tuesday that he did not plan to seek nullification of his highly critical U.N. report on Israel's 2008-2009 offensive in the Gaza Strip and asserted that claims to the contrary by Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai were false.

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Poll: One-third of Palestinians support Itamar attack
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
April 6, 2011 - 12:00am

One-third of Palestinians support the attack in Itamar in March, in which an Israeli family of five was murdered while 63 percent opposed it, according to a Hebrew University poll released on Wednesday. The survey was conducted by Prof. Yaacov Shamir of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace and the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University, and Prof. Khalil Shikaki, Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR).

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The bookseller of Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by B. Wasserstein - (Opinion) April 6, 2011 - 12:00am

It’s often the small injustices that stab us in the heart, even in a world of monstrous tsunamis, nuclear emergencies and despotic repression. Last week, Munther Fahmi told me he is in imminent danger of deportation. Fahmi, a friend for the past 15 years, is a bookseller in Jerusalem. One might better say he is the bookseller there, since his shop is almost the only serious foreign-language one left in a city that once boasted many.

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Israel to lobby Germany against Palestinian plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Josef Federman - April 6, 2011 - 12:00am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ask Germany's leader to drop her support for a proposal endorsing a Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem when he meets with her this week, Israeli officials said Wednesday.

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Israelis defend threatened Palestinian bookseller
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Maayan Lubell - April 5, 2011 - 12:00am

Leading Israeli authors have joined a campaign against the deportation of a Palestinian book shop owner, whose business in east Jerusalem has become a hub for diplomats, artists and academics from across the world. Jerusalem-born Munther Fahmi's residency was voided by Israel after he left in 1973 to study in the United States, where he acquired citizenship. For 18 years he has been living in Jerusalem intermittently, entering Israel on a tourist visa.

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Obama: Mideast peace bid needed amid region's unrest
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Matt Spetalnick - April 5, 2011 - 12:00am

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday it was more urgent than ever to seize the opportunity to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts even as unrest swept the broader Middle East. Speaking after White House talks with Israeli President Shimon Peres, Obama pressed Israel and the Palestinians to capitalize on the wave of political change in the Arab world and seek to advance their long-stalled peace process. But Obama, whose attempts to broker a peace deal have yielded little since he took office, stopped short of unveiling any new initiative to bring the two sides together.

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