Behind Henry Siegman's Turn on Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Guttman - October 2, 2012 - 12:00am


At 82, Henry Siegman felt pessimism setting in as he thought of the future of Israel and its decades-long conflict with the Palestinians. “The two-state solution,” he recently wrote “is dead.”


Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Popularity on the Upswing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Linda Gradstein - October 1, 2012 - 12:00am


As Israelis begin the observance of Sukkot, a week-long religious holiday celebrating the end of the harvest, talk on the streets is of travel plans and family visits. Many Israelis build a sukkah, an outdoor hut open to the stars, as commanded in the Bible, where they eat their meals – and where some even sleep -- for the week.


Arabs hold protest march to mark October riots
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Hassan Shaalan - October 1, 2012 - 12:00am


Thousands demonstrated in Sakhnin on Monday marking 12 years since the October 2000 riots in which 12 Arab-Israelis, a Palestinian and a Jewish citizen were killed. They are protesting the State's failure to take legal action against members of the security forces who caused the victims' deaths.


PA releases Zakaria Zubeidi on bail
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
October 1, 2012 - 12:00am


BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Former Fatah fighter Zakaria Zubeidi was released from Palestinian Authority jail on Monday evening, his lawyer said. Zubeidi has been charged with connection to the shooting on the late Jenin governor's house in May, attorney Farid Hawash said. Qaddura Musa died hours later of a heart attack. Hawash said Zubeidi would plead not guilty at the next hearing on Oct. 7. The Jenin court released him on bail of 5,000 Jordanian dinar, he added.


Israel scrambles Palestinian 'right of return' with Jewish refugee talk
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Christa Case Bryant - October 1, 2012 - 12:00am


More than 60 years after the founding of Israel precipitated two tides of refugees in the Middle East, the Israeli government has launched a campaign to persuade the world that it’s not just Palestinians who suffered in Israel's early days.


Palestinian official says Obama didn't ask to resume Mideast talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
October 1, 2012 - 12:00am


  RAMALLAH, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- The United States President Barack Obama didn't ask the Palestinian side for resuming the peace talks with Israel, a senior Palestinian official said Monday. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Xinhua on telephone that the Palestinian side hasn't received any official offer or proposal from anybody to resume peace negotiations with Israel.


Hamas detains radical Salafi leader, 5 aides in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
October 1, 2012 - 12:00am


GAZA, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic Hamas movement's administration in the Gaza Strip has arrested the leader of a radical al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic Salafi group and five of his aides, the group said in a statement on Monday. The group, called the Army of the Nation (Jaish el-Omma), said in a statement sent to reporters that Hamas police arrested Abu Hafs al-Maqdisi, the group's leader, and five other activists of the group.


Pro-settler vandals deface Jerusalem monastery
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
October 2, 2012 - 12:00am


JERUSALEM, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Suspected hardline Israelis scrawled pro-settler graffiti and religious insults on a monastery outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City on Tuesday, police said, in the latest of a series of attacks on non-Jewish sites. The vandals wrote the phrase "price tag" in Hebrew on the gate of the Monastery of Saint Francis on Mount Zion - a reference to a violent campaign supporting unauthorised settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.


Palestinians: 2 teams to probe Arafat's death
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Mohammed Daraghmeh - October 1, 2012 - 12:00am


RAMALLAH, West Bank —Investigators from France and Switzerland will conduct parallel probes into the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Palestinian officials said Monday. His remains will be exhumed, at a date kept secret, to give each team a chance to draw samples to test for poisoning. The two teams are acting separately on behalf of Arafat's widow Suha Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, who each had misgivings about the other's investigation.


Official: Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Elizabeth Kennedy - October 2, 2012 - 12:00am


A Lebanese security official says a Hezbollah commander and several other fighters from the militant group have been killed in Syria. The Shiite Muslim group is a strong ally of the Syrian regime. The Syrian opposition has long accused the group of assisting President Bashar Assad crack down on the 18-month-old uprising, a claim the group has denied.



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