Students should visit Hebron
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Susan Hattis Rolef - (Opinion) February 5, 2012 - 1:00am Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s March 2011 decision to initiate a program whereby students from national and national- religious schools visit Hebron and its environs, exposing the students to the historical connection of the Jewish people to “the Land of the Patriarchs,” was without doubt a legitimate one. |
Syria crisis reveals hypocrisy of Israel's Arab MKs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Eliezer Yaari - (Opinion) February 6, 2012 - 1:00am More than 300 people were murdered in Syria by their own government over the weekend, killed by tank, cannon and mortar fire. Their homes were destroyed and hundreds still remain buried under the ruins. There's a long trail of blood behind these numbers, flickering pictures of small children being thrown from windows and video taken with a cellphone of a man walking, a shot being heard and the man falling to the ground. |
Israel can clear Mideast of nukes, it just won't
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) February 6, 2012 - 1:00am Palestinians are being regularly and illegally barred from reaching Dead Sea beaches in the occupied West Bank, according to a Supreme Court petition filed by Israel's leading civil rights organisation. The Association of Civil Rights (Acri) in Israel is challenging what it says is the frequently imposed ban by the military on Palestinians seeking to swim or relax at beaches in the northern Dead Sea. The salt-saturated sea is the only open water accessible to Palestinians from the otherwise landlocked West Bank. |
Pro-Peace Group Barred From Leading Hebron Tours
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Nathan Jeffay - February 5, 2012 - 1:00am Tel Aviv — A year ago, Israel’s Education Ministry launched a program to encourage schools to visit Jewish sites in the occupied West Bank town of Hebron, drawing fire from doves who charged the ministry with bringing politics into school trips. The doves’ effort to stop the program failed. Having failed to beat them, a dovish group of army veterans sought recently to join them. But on January 28, the police informed the Hebrew University High School that members of the dovish organization Breaking the Silence would be barred from joining its students on their Hebron tour the next day. |
PA to submit Israeli sites to World Heritage List
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Elior Levy - February 6, 2012 - 1:00am Failure to make progress during the latest round of talks between the Palestinians and Israel led the Palestinian leadership to examine new ways in which to gain recognition in the international arena. One such effort is focused on submitting nominations of heritage sites – both on Palestinian and Israeli territory – for inscription on UNESCO's World Heritage List. The Palestinian Authority was admitted as a full member of UNESCO in October 2011, which enables it to make bids for historic monuments and locations to be classified as World Heritage Sites. |
Palestinian aids Israeli soldier left behind in raid
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters February 3, 2012 - 1:00am JERUSALEM, Feb 3 (Reuters) - An Israeli soldier stranded after a raid in occupied territory was escorted to safety by a Palestinian man in the same village the troops had targeted, witnesses and media reports said. The Israeli military said Friday a batallion commander had been suspended from duties for the soldier having been abandoned on enemy turf in the raid this week, an infraction which Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz saw as a "serious incident". |
No Israeli Decision on Iran Attack, Obama Says
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Scott Shane - February 5, 2012 - 1:00am President Obama said Sunday that he did not believe Israel had made a decision on whether to attack Iran to disrupt its nuclear program and that diplomacy remained the “preferred solution” to resolving the standoff over what Western leaders believe is Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. |
When Talk of War Transcends Idle Chatter
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Ethan Bronner - February 5, 2012 - 1:00am JERUSALEM — Israelis like to say that when it comes to military and security operations, those who know don’t talk, and those who talk don’t know. But the intense and increasingly public debate about whether to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities is challenging that piece of conventional wisdom. The standard view has been that successful attacks rely on secrecy and surprise, so the more talk there is about an operation, the less likely it will occur. |
Final member of Damascus-based Hamas politburo leaves Syria
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) February 5, 2012 - 1:00am A senior member of the Hamas movement politburo, Imad el-Alami, previously based in Syria, returned to the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Hamas sources said he was the last remaining member of the movement's Damascus-based politburo to leave Syria. Hamas decided to leave Syria in order not to be seen as endorsing the regime of President Bashar Assad in his bloody crackdown against his own people. |
Israeli premier to visit US to address lobby
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press February 5, 2012 - 1:00am JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office says he will visit the U.S. next month for the annual conference of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby. A statement by Netanyahu's office Sunday said the prime minister would speak at the conference. It was not immediately clear if Netanyahu would meet U.S. President Obama during his visit. The visit comes at a time of deadlock in Israel-Palestinian talks and growing international concern that Israel could soon launch an attack on Iran's nuclear program. |