Palestinians invest $2 billion in Jericho to celebrate its 10,000th birthday
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Irit Rosenblum - October 3, 2010 - 12:00am


The Palestinian Authority is launching a new branding campaign for the city of Jericho, one of the oldest cities in the world. Celebrations planned for October 10 will be held in honor of the establishment of the city 10,000 years ago. The city is also expecting to see $2 billion invested in a residential complex and hotels, and the option of an airport is also being discussed.


Future of vast Jewish enclave in West Bank far from settled
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - October 3, 2010 - 12:00am


Reporting from Ariel, West Bank advertisement Ron Nachman had waited 10 months for this day. But when Israel's West Bank construction moratorium expired a week ago and settlers celebrated with balloons and bulldozers, the mayor of the fourth-largest Jewish settlement was nowhere to be found. Nachman, 68, was in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy for recently diagnosed bladder cancer.


Years of rage
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel - (Opinion) October 1, 2010 - 12:00am


If anyone needed a reminder, it came 10 days ago, via images broadcast from the clashes in Silwan in East Jerusalem: The funeral of the Palestinian shot dead by an Israeli security guard; the police commanders' explanation that the guard was caught in a nighttime ambush and felt his life was in danger; the masked stone-throwers; the burned Israeli cars with shattered windows; a line of policemen advancing, tossing gas grenades on its way to dispersing the riot.


Pressure mounts on PM to reject US ‘benefits package’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gil Hoffman - October 4, 2010 - 12:00am


Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has begun efforts to persuade Likud cabinet members to support a deal with the US in which Israel would limit construction in Judea and Samaria for 60 days in return for American promises, Likud officials confirmed on Sunday. While the proposal has not been finalized, Netanyahu’s associates have started making inquiries with the ministers, asking them to be flexible.


Five myths about Middle East peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Aaron David Miller - October 3, 2010 - 12:00am


Yet again, Israelis and Palestinians are negotiating (or trying to), and yet again, a U.S. administration is in the middle of the muddle. We've seen this movie many times before, and I've watched it up close as a negotiator and adviser for both Democratic and Republican secretaries of state. Is there any reason to believe that this time around, there will be a happy ending? Mutual suspicions, domestic political constraints and substantive differences between the parties are hampering the talks.


David Grossman, a Man Who Owns Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Leonard Fein - (Opinion) September 29, 2010 - 12:00am


In his remarkable recent New Yorker profile of the Israeli writer David Grossman, George Packer observes that the heroine of Grossman’s new novel “embraces the breadth of Israel’s tragedy, a country that can take nothing for granted, not even its own existence.” (The novel, “To the End of the Land,” is newly available in English.) Yet Packer’s lengthy article, though tinged with tragedy to be sure, is colored as well by resolve, even triumph. For the Grossman he portrays is a steadfast Israeli patriot, a man who owns Israel.


Take a good look at Olmert’s fingertips
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Uri Avnery - (Opinion) October 4, 2010 - 12:00am


He was talking about the negotiation he had conducted personally with Mahmoud Abbas, just before he himself was forced to vacate the prime minister’s office. That was the climax of the speech he made last week at a meeting of the “Geneva Initiative”. Before analyzing it, a few words about the host and about the speaker.


Defining 'Jewish state': For many, term has different meanings
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Glenn Kessler - October 2, 2010 - 12:00am


Nine years ago, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered a speech on the Middle East in which he briefly called on Palestinians to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state." Powell doesn't recall how the phrase ended up in his speech, but David Ivry, then the Israeli ambassador to the United States, says he persuaded an aide to Powell to slip it in.


Palestinians: Peace talks hinge on Israeli settlement construction
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Joel Greenberg - October 3, 2010 - 12:00am


JERUSALEM - The Palestinian leadership said on Saturday that there would be no resumption of peace talks without a halt to Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, backing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a dispute that has imperiled recently renewed negotiations.


Israeli Soldiers Convicted of Using Boy as Shield
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - October 3, 2010 - 12:00am


JERUSALEM — An Israeli military court convicted two soldiers on Sunday of using a 9-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield by forcing him to check bags for explosives in Israel’s 2008-9 Gaza war. The court said that the two soldiers, both infantry sergeants, had taken part in an operation to seize an apartment building in Tel al-Hawa, a southern suburb of Gaza City, while under attack from Hamas fighters.



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