July 5th

Israel rejects settlement university in West Bank ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press July 4, 2012 - 12:00am Israel's council of higher education voted Wednesday not to grant a West Bank college coveted university status, vetoing a move that could have triggered international condemnations and enraged the Palestinians. Sharon Achdut, the council's spokesman, said five out of seven members of the committee voted against upgrading the status of the college in Ariel, one of the largest Jewish settlements in the West Bank. » Read more

Israeli journalist reaches plea bargain with state ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press July 5, 2012 - 12:00am An investigative reporter who faced indictment for exposing classified military documents has reached a plea bargain with the government that will allow him to avoid jail time, his newspaper and the justice ministry said Thursday. The government had announced in May that it would charge Uri Blau from the liberal Haaretz newspaper with unauthorized possession of state secrets, stirring up fears of a crusade to stifle the press. Journalists had said charges against Blau would make reporters hesitate to do their jobs, for fear they might end up in jail. » Read more

Hamas PM to meet Islamist president of Egypt ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press July 5, 2012 - 12:00am A Palestinian official says Gaza's prime minister will head to Cairo within the next two weeks to meet with Egypt's new Islamist president, who has close ties with the territory's Hamas rulers. Cabinet secretary Mohammed Askoul says Ismail Haniyeh will meet President Mohammed Morsi and senior Egyptian security officials. Haniyeh wants Egypt to open its border with Gaza. Hamas is an offshoot of Morsi's region-wide Muslim Brotherhood movement. » Read more

Rewriting the Arafat story ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Alex Fishman - (Opinion) July 5, 2012 - 12:00am Fatah’s old guard, and especially Arafat’s family, has a great task: Arranging a dignified death for the father of the Palestinian nation. The fact that Arafat left the stage while afflicted with a disease that one does not speak about openly, far away from his people, at a French hospital, is incommensurate with the national ethos. » Read more

Israeli officials deny Arafat poisoning rumors ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua July 5, 2012 - 12:00am Israeli officials on Thursday quashed recent rumors that late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died due to radiation poisoning, denying any connection to his death. Arafat passed away in a French military hospital outside Paris on Nov. 11, 2004. Hospital doctors said the specific cause of death was a massive brain hemorrhage, and Arafat has a blood disease called "disseminated intravascular coagulation," according to the Haaretz daily. The report said the ailment has a number of causes, including infections, colitis and liver disease. » Read more

Aide: Palestinian leader wants more on Arafat ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press July 5, 2012 - 12:00am An aide says the Palestinian leader wants more information from a Swiss lab before deciding whether to dig up the remains of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. Doctors at the lab say they found elevated levels of the radioactive agent polonium-210 on clothing reportedly worn by Arafat before his death in November 2004. The lab says the findings don't prove Arafat was poisoned. Experts are divided over whether an autopsy, sought by Arafat's widow, could clear up a lingering mystery surrounding the cause of Arafat's death. » Read more

It was Zionism itself that Israel buried this week. Let it go. ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Bradley Burston - (Opinion) July 3, 2012 - 12:00am It's time to take a lesson from the successful. It's time to begin thinking like Yitzhak Shamir. When he died this week, the first several people I spoke with, knowledgeable people who closely follow politics and the news, all had the same reaction. "I wasn't sure that he was still alive." » Read more

Palestinians May Exhume Arafat After Report of Poisoning ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Isabel Kershner - July 4, 2012 - 12:00am A potentially explosive re-examination of the circumstances behind the death of Yasir Arafat, the symbol of the Palestinian national struggle, has galvanized Palestinian suspicions that he was poisoned and led the Palestinian Authority to agree in principle on Wednesday to an exhumation of his remains, possibly within days. Yasir and Suha Arafat in Ramallah in 2004, about two weeks before Mr. Arafat died. Al Jazeera has reported that he might have been poisoned with radioactive polonium 210. » Read more

Containing the Islamist Revolution ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy by Ephraim Sneh - (Opinion) June 28, 2012 - 12:00am When politicians are in election mode, they can see nothing but victory. All decisions, all considerations, are subservient to one question: how they can convince voters to check their name at the ballot box. As someone who ran for office nine times, I know what I am talking about. But for the candidate who wins the election, and for the voters, there is always the day after. » Read more

What Does Morsi Mean for Israel? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Thomas L. Friedman - (Opinion) July 3, 2012 - 12:00am Is the election of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, as president of Egypt the beginning of the end of the Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt? It doesn’t have to be. In fact, it could actually be the beginning of a real peace between the Israeli and the Egyptian peoples, instead of what we’ve had: a cold, formal peace between Israel and a single Egyptian pharaoh. But, for that to be the case, both sides will have to change some deeply ingrained behaviors, and fast. » Read more