October 9th, 2007

Christian Activist Killed In Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press by Ibrahim Barzak - October 9, 2007 - 1:40pm A prominent Palestinian Christian activist was found dead on a Gaza City street Sunday, sending a shudder of fear through a tiny Christian community feeling increasingly insecure since the Islamic Hamas seized control last summer. The body of Rami Khader Ayyad, the 32-year-old director of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, bore a visible gunshot wound to the head, and an official at Gaza's Shifa Hospital said he was also stabbed numerous times. Ayyad had been missing since Saturday afternoon. » Read more

As Farmers And Fields Rest, A Land Grows Restless ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Steven Erlanger - October 9, 2007 - 1:37pm As Israel’s Jews start a new year, the country finds itself in the middle of a fierce religious dispute about the sanctity of fruits and vegetables. In the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malahi, a man held a scroll of the Torah, which mandates shmita, a kind of sabbatical for the land which occurs every seven years. Rabbis are pitted against one another, the state and the religious authorities are in conflict, the Israeli Supreme Court is involved, the devout are confused and the cost of produce is rising. » Read more

October 8th

Giving Them Something To Talk About ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Avi Issacharoff - October 8, 2007 - 4:17pm One by one, the Palestinian visitors entered the sukkah at the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's official residence last Wednesday. They entered cautiously and hesitantly, noting the decorative Israeli flags closing in on them from all sides. They promptly underwent an accelerated course in Judaism, as Olmert explained the four plant species used in the Sukkot rituals. The pictures, they knew, would certainly not improve their standing among the Palestinian public. » Read more

Some Dates Are Sacred ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Akiva Eldar - (Editorial) October 8, 2007 - 4:16pm The Palestinians consider November to be unlucky, and justly so. Since the Balfour Declaration in November 1917, which recognized the establishment of a national home for the Jews in the Land of Israel, November bodes badly for them - in 30-year intervals. » Read more

Why, When And How The Us Challenges Israel’s Actions ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Institute For Palestine Studies by Nadia Hijab - October 8, 2007 - 4:13pm Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said bluntly during his recent meetings with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the credibility of the peace process could only be restored by, among other things, an immediate halt to Israeli settlement, an end to the closures that had ruined the Palestinian economy, and a timeframe to implement final status issues. [1] Abbas thus emphasized not only the need to address final status issues, but also to push for implementation. » Read more

Abbas Should Listen To His Refugees ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) October 8, 2007 - 4:10pm Momentum seems to be picking up for the November meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, between the United States, Israel, and representatives of roughly half the Palestinians, to achieve a framework agreement for comprehensive peace negotiations, leading to permanent peace. In many ways we are back to 2000, when Israelis and Palestinians hurriedly huddled with Americans at Camp David to try and resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that is at the heart of Arab-Israeli tensions. » Read more

Exam Failure: The Price Gaza's Children Are Paying For International Blockade ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by Donald Macintyre - October 8, 2007 - 4:08pm Unfailingly polite, and spotless in their uniforms of blue and white striped smocks, the teenage pupils from the UN Relief and Works Agency Girls' Preparatory A school in Al Deraj were initially shy about talking about why they had wound up in a remedial class. "We can't concentrate," said Kholoud Shehada, 15. "We have other things on our minds." What exactly? Kholoud paused before saying hesitantly: "My father is unemployed." » Read more

Boost Here, Squeeze There ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist by Hebron, Jenin And Nablus - October 8, 2007 - 2:54pm THEY came for Omar Maswadeh at half-past midnight. They broke furniture at his home in the West Bank town of Hebron, blindfolded him, shoved him in a car. They kept him in solitary, hooded and with his hands tied, in the painful seated shabah position that Israeli courts have outlawed. Two days later they came for his brother Alaa and his cousin Yusri. After holding the young men for two to three weeks each, they charged them with membership in Hamas's “executive force”, a militia that the Islamist party created in Gaza but never actually managed to form in the West Bank. » Read more

Olmert Reassures Critics Ahead Of Us Peace Meet ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP) October 8, 2007 - 2:50pm Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday sought to counter domestic criticism that he may be moving too quickly in talks with Palestinians ahead of a US-sponsored Middle East conference. Speaking before the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Olmert said that no agreements or deals had been reached in a series of one-on-one meetings with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas over the past months. » Read more

Condi's Keys ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New Republic by Dennis Ross - October 8, 2007 - 1:54pm Secretary of State Rice is planning to convene an international meeting in Annapolis sometime in November. While President Bush has spent little time during his tenure on Arab-Israeli peacemaking, he has embraced Secretary Rice's ambitious desire to use the Annapolis meeting to endorse a statement of principles on how to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. » Read more