NEWS: The Catholic Church asks Israel to help end attacks on churches in Israel and the occupied territories. Egypt will supply more power to Gaza, but local authorities say it's not enough. Pres. Abbas accuses Israel of conducting “ethnic cleansing” in Jerusalem, which PM Netanyahu angrily denies. Qatar's Emir agrees Arab identity in Jerusalem is at risk. Most other Palestinian parties are blaming Hamas for the impasse in national reconciliation talks. Hamas leaders say they now openly support the Syrian uprising, and analysts say it marks a historic shift in Hamas' regional alignments. Israel is threatening to demolish Palestinian solar energy installations in the occupied territories because they were built “without permission.” Qatar reportedly pledges $250 million for reconstruction in Gaza. Israel is planning a huge railway network for the occupied territories. Israeli officials fear the outbreak of another Palestinian intifada, but not in the coming year. COMMENTARY: AP interviews Hamas leader Abu Marzouk about the group's relocation from Syria. Akiva Eldar says Netanyahu was peddling a swindle during the last round of negotiations. Anshel Pfeffer says Israeli officials are skeptical about a planned pro-Palestinian mass march on Jerusalem next month. The Jerusalem Post interviews former Mossad Chief Halevy, who says it makes no sense to ask Palestinians to recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” Leonard Fein says Israel needs to face up to its own nuclear arsenal. Shlomo Gazit says there is no apartheid in Israel, but there is discrimination against Palestinian citizens. Samah Jabr says life in the occupied territories is very much like apartheid. Matt Duss looks at the politics and economics of smuggling in Gaza. U Penn student Joshua Goldman says his “Birthright Israel” experience was hardly apolitical, but in fact tendentious propaganda.

My ‘Birthwrong’ experience
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Pennsylvanian
by Joshua Goldman - (Opinion) February 27, 2012 - 1:00am

I was compelled to write this as a result of Glenn Shrum’s mischaracterization of Taglit-Birthright in his article on the free trip to Israel offered to Jewish youth (“Taglit-Birthright Israel gaining popularity” 02/23/2012). The article makes the assertion that the trip is apolitical and that it avoids certain areas in the country — the allegedly dangerous ones that make neurotic Jewish mothers queasy — for mere practical reasons. As a former participant of the trip and someone who was raised Jewish in a decidedly pro-Israel household, I do not believe this is true.

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Smugglers’ tunnels are Hamas’ lifeblood
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Salon.com
by Matthew Duss - (Opinion) February 27, 2012 - 1:00am

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — The first things you notice are the trucks, entering Rafah’s dusty main thoroughfare from small side streets, flatbeds fully loaded and covered. Then there are the young boys packed three to a motorbike, darting heedlessly in between the rumbling behemoths, clutching shovels. As you get closer, you see the enormous mounds of earth and rubble, some 10 feet high and more, set amid acres of makeshift canopies, tents and metal garages, which serve as loading docks for Rafah’s booming tunnel trade.

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Apartheid has a face
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Samah Jaber - (Opinion) February 23, 2012 - 1:00am

Last month, in the early evening, as I drove on Jerusalem's Route 1 in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, I was attacked by several Israeli boys. They were about 12 or 13 years old, in religious orthodox dress. They threw a ball of burning gas into my car while I was stopped at a traffic light on my way to attend class at the Israeli Institute of Psychoanalysis.

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Many instances of discrimination
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Shlomo Gazit - (Opinion) February 23, 2012 - 1:00am

Apartheid policy was a set of principles of racial separation between whites, blacks, Indians and coloreds in pre-1994 South Africa and the attributing of privileges there to the white minority. Its principal characteristic in South Africa does not apply to Israel, which does not discriminate between black and white citizens and, indeed, has even adopted policies of encouraging immigration and reverse discrimination regarding black Jews from Cochin and Ethiopia.

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What About Israel's Atomic Weapons?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Leonard Fein - (Opinion) February 26, 2012 - 1:00am

What About Israel's Atomic Weapons? Israel’s best kept secret is not of the “maybe yes, maybe no” variety. In fact it is a “yes” so definitive that it has 162 million Google entries. Honest. That’s what Google’s response is when you type in “Israel’s nuclear policy” — books, articles, essays, arguments, all blithely recognizing that Israel has nuclear arms.

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'Israel doesn't need recognition as Jewish state'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Greer Fay Cashman - (Opinion) February 27, 2012 - 1:00am

Former Mossad Chief Efraim Halevy doesn't think that Israel needs to insist on having the Palestinians or anyone else for that matter recognize Israel as a Jewish state or approve its right to exist. Halevy who was speaking at Jerusalem's Kehilat Moreshet Avraham on Sunday night noted that Israel is a Jewish State and that any treaty or agreement signed with Israel by any other state or entity is tantamount to recognition. It doesn't have to be spelled out.

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Palestinian activists plan massive march on Israel's borders next month
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Anshel Pfeffer - (Opinion) February 26, 2012 - 1:00am

You probably have not yet heard about the Global March to Jerusalem (GM2J) planned in less than five weeks for March 30, but its organizers believe that it will focus the world's attention on Israel's oppression of the Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

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Netanyahu's latest Mideast peace push was nothing more than a swindle
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) February 27, 2012 - 1:00am

The Natan Eshel affair, in which the head of the Prime Minister's Bureau resigned and admitted to harassing a female subordinate, turned the three senior aides who blew the whistle on him into the heroes of a Greek tragedy. The three - Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser, Military Secretary Yohanan Locker and chief media adviser Yoaz Hendel, who has since resigned - must have known what they were getting into for ratting on a darling of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara. Nevertheless, they put themselves in harm's way and reported Eshel's misdeeds to the attorney general.

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AP Interview: Hamas out of Syria, leader says
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Mohammed Daraghmeh - (Interview) February 26, 2012 - 1:00am

CAIRO — The Hamas leadership has left its longtime base in Syria because of the regime's crackdown on opponents there, the No. 2 in the Islamic militant movement said in an interview Sunday at his new home on the outskirts of Cairo. Moussa Abu Marzouk also told The Associated Press that a unity deal between Hamas and its political rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, faces steep obstacles despite optimistic assessments made by both sides in public.

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