October 10th, 2011

Will the Real Benjamin Netanyahu Please Stand Up? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy by Daniel Levy - (Opinion) October 7, 2011 - 12:00am With the old peace process precariously poised between Palestinian flirtations with seeking international redress, U.S. congressional threats to funding, and Middle East Quartet incantations to resume negotiations, October promises to be just as rhetorically intense on the Israel-Palestine front as was the long-awaited September. Much depends on one's reading of Israel's man at the helm -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. » Read more

Why Did Tunisia Block Palestinians From Arab Blogger Conference? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Voice of America by Cecily Hilleary - October 7, 2011 - 12:00am Pro-democracy activists attending this week’s 3rd annual Arab Bloggers Conference in Tunis thought they were gathering for four days of networking, socializing and information sharing; instead, they found themselves organizing yet another protest. » Read more

Obama’s Israel problem ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times by Ian Buruma - October 10, 2011 - 12:00am On a rare foray outside his native Texas, Governor Rick Perry accused US President Barack Obama of “appeasement” towards the Palestinians. Former New York City Mayor Edward Koch supported a Catholic Republican congressional candidate against a Jewish Democrat in New York, because the Republican supports Israel through thick and thin - and because Obama had voiced reservations about Israel’s expansion of settlements on the West Bank. In Koch’s words, Obama “threw Israel under the bus”. The Republican won. » Read more

Top Israeli defense official arrives in Egypt to discuss border security ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Jack Khoury - October 9, 2011 - 12:00am A top Israeli security official is visiting Cairo, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram reported on Sunday, amid recent tensions between Israel and Egypt over security arrangements in the Sinai. Relations between Israel and Egypt took a turn to the worse in August, when eight Israelis were killed on a desert border road by gunmen who Israel has said infiltrated from the Gaza Strip via Egypt's Sinai desert. » Read more

Hamas fees and taxes infuriate Gazans ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Hugh Naylor - October 9, 2011 - 12:00am RAFAH, GAZA STRIP // Hamas is imposing a taxation system that raises the cost of fuel, permits and government-property leases. The measures are angering Gazans and raising speculation that Hamas is suffering from a significant drop in funding from Islamist supporters. Analysts say Hamas's financial backers may be providing less because they now are sending money to Islamists in Egypt and helping fund Arab Spring uprisings. Also, Iran may be punishing Hamas for failing to publicly pledge its support for the Syrian regime during its crackdown on protesters. » Read more

Fight for Justice Continues Against Violent Settlers ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Leonard Fein - (Opinion) October 6, 2011 - 12:00am Two of my young Israeli friends, key activists in Solidarity, the folks who for nearly two years have demonstrated every Friday afternoon at Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem where Israeli Jews have been buying up Palestinian property and claiming that the neighborhood is legally Jewish, were assaulted September 30. My friends, graduate students, were assaulted by Jewish settlers in a village near Jerusalem, a 20-minute drive from the center of the city, an hour’s walk from the Old City, in Anatot, once the home of Jeremiah the prophet. » Read more

Palestinians to push heritage agenda at UNESCO ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters October 10, 2011 - 12:00am The Palestinians will seek World Heritage status for the birthplace of Jesus once the UN cultural agency admits them as a full member, and will then nominate other sites in the West Bank for the same standing, an official said. Hamdan Taha, a Palestinian Authority minister who deals with antiquities and culture, said UNESCO membership was the Palestinians' natural right. He described the objections of some governments to the move, including the United States, as "regrettable." » Read more

Isolation? What isolation? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Danny Ayalon - (Opinion) October 9, 2011 - 12:00am During the past few months, Israel’s purported growing isolation has been the subject of much discussion. It is far from the truth, and it is ironic that this debate has taken place during an effective Israeli challenge to the long-standing paradigm of the Palestinians using the United Nations as a “rubber stamp” for its capricious policies. » Read more

Hamas calls for seizing Israeli soldiers to swap for Palestinian prisoners ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua by Yamei Wang - October 7, 2011 - 12:00am GAZA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- A senior official of the Islamic Hamas movement in Gaza on Friday called on Palestinian militants to seize Israeli soldiers and exchange them with Palestinians held in Israeli jails. The popular, political, media and diplomatic efforts inside and outside "can never be an alternative to the military efforts to rescue our prisoners from the oppressive occupation's prisons," said Ahmad Bahar, a Gaza-based Hamas leader and deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, in a press statement. » Read more

Palestinian killed in Gaza blast ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman by Josef Federman - October 9, 2011 - 12:00am JERUSALEM — Palestinian officials in the Gaza Strip say at least one person has been killed in an explosion along the northern border with Israel. The cause of the blast is unclear, and medical teams are removing the remains of the dead. The Israeli army says it was not involved in Monday's incident. Army officials say they believe the blast was set off by two militants who were trying to plant a bomb. Israeli troops frequently clash with Palestinian militants in the border area.