January 5th

Free Barghouti Now
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Bradley Burston - (Opinion) January 4, 2010 - 1:00am


It's a spellbinding opal of a Saturday afternoon in winter. A number of close friends are tackling the Haaretz weekend quiz, the Hebrew edition of 20 maddeningly arcane and demanding questions. They manage to get 16 right. No small feat. The talk then turns to Israeli politics. At last, the question is a simple one. If there were an election now, who would get your vote? There are 10 people present. Not one of them manages to come up with a single answer.


A new freezing point
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Shaul Arieli - (Opinion) January 5, 2010 - 1:00am


Israel's political and unilateral moves in the past decade have shown that its position on the borders with the Palestinians is divorced from the requirements of security, water supply and infrastructure. They are dictated by one factor alone: the settlements. Israeli prime ministers, only too aware of their domestic political weakness, want to avoid any significant evacuation of settlers.


How Israel is implementing the settlement freeze
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Marcy Oster - January 4, 2010 - 1:00am


While an Israeli magician sat in an ice cube in Tel Aviv for 64 hours in a bid to shatter a world record, settler leaders in Jerusalem prepared to smash an ice cube of a very different sort this week opposite the prime minister’s residence.


Jews raise voices for brutalised Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Linda S. Heard - January 5, 2010 - 1:00am


Last week in Cairo, Hedy Epstein, a frail 85-year-old American woman, embarked on a hunger strike for the first time in her life to protest the ongoing blockade of Gaza. She has no idea how her body will hold up, she says, but that isn't her priority. She is one of more than 1,300 international participants from 42 countries who flew to Cairo with the aim of participating in the Gaza Freedom March, initially planned to coincide with the first anniversary of Israel's Operation Cast Lead.


Rights group slams planned 'Israelis only' highway in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) January 5, 2010 - 1:00am


Less than a week after Israel's highest court ordered the state to lift its ban on Palestinian motorists from a highway that stretches into the West Bank, left-wing activists are denouncing new plans on Tuesday to build a road on West Bank land which they claim is intended for use by Israelis only.


Palestinian children suffer from inadequate TV shows
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Daoud Kuttab - January 5, 2010 - 1:00am


Television penetration in the Palestinian territories is nearly 100 percent. Almost every home – no matter how poor the family – has a television set in its sitting room. Television viewership is higher than average among Palestinians for two primary reasons: First, because of the continuing conflict, people feel the need to watch television to keep up with the events that will often directly affect their lives. And second, with high levels of insecurity and trouble lying outside Palestinian homes, the television has often become the only source of entertainment.


Fayyad concedes PA tortured Hamas detainees
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
(Editorial) January 5, 2010 - 1:00am


Bethlehem – Ma'an – Caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad implicitly admitted in a report published on Sunday that Palestinian Authority security forces have tortured Hamas detainees over the past two years. An Associated Press report on the subject, citing interviews with Hamas inmates, rights activists, Hamas officials and Fayyad himself, said that most torture had ended in October. Fayyad’s comments, however, amounted to the first time a senior PA official conceded that abuses were committed by the security forces, many of which are trained by the US, Russia, and other world powers.


Jerusalem should be at the center of peace efforts
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Daoud Kuttab - January 4, 2010 - 1:00am


The first decade of the twenty-first century has been a disastrous one for Palestinians. Negotiations efforts were dealt a dramatic blow, historic leaders and potential leaders were killed, assassinated or imprisoned and, worst of all, the scourge of internal strife returned to Palestinians in the form of the destructive Hamas-Fateh division.


Israeli officers cancel UK trip over arrest fears
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
(Editorial) January 5, 2010 - 1:00am


Bethlehem – Ma’an – Israel cancelled the departure of a military delegation to Britain last week after authorities there said they could not guarantee the officers would be safe from arrest. The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Tuesday that the delegation included a colonel, lieutenant colonel and a major. Approached by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affiars, the UK government said it could not promise the three would not face arrest.


Israel okays new Jerusalem settlement buildings
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
(Editorial) January 5, 2010 - 1:00am


Bethlehem – Ma'an – Israeli authorities approved on Monday the construction of four new settlement apartment buildings Palestinian land in occupied east Jerusalem. According to Israeli media, the country’s Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee approved the new structures, intended to house 24 settler families adjacent to a Jewish religious school, in the heart of the annexed Palestinian capital.



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