A Year of Stalemate, Dashed Hopes in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Voice of America
by Luis Ramirez - December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

2009 saw no resumption of the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Both sides are beginning the New Year at a stalemate over Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and rising tensions over the status of Jerusalem. 2009 began with bombs and rockets as Israel launched a massive assault, Operation Cast Lead, aimed at stopping militants from firing rockets at Israel. During the assault, militants from Gaza continued to fire homemade missiles over the border, exploding in communities of southern Israel.

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Real Settlements and Imagined State
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Husam Itani - (Opinion) December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

The sympathy in the words of Israeli Minister Benny Begin and the attack of settlers against the mosque of the village of Yasuf in the West Bank, in addition to the tepid response to Palestinian efforts aimed at obtaining international recognition of the state which the Palestinian Authority is threatening to declare unilaterally, reveals the depth of the Palestinian predicament and its urgent need for a approach different from that which has proved bankrupt, in and from the side of the two camps dominating the Palestinian scene.

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U.K. reportedly issues arrest warrant for Livni
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni on Monday canceled her participation in a Jewish function in London, after a warrant for her arrest was issued over part in last winter's Israel's Gaza offensive, Arab-language media have reported. Al-Quds Al-Arabi claimed that Scotland Yard advised the organizers of the Jewish National Fund conference in northwest London that the former foreign minister had canceled her scheduled address to the assembly over threats of a possible lawsuit by pro-Palestinian groups.

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Hamas celebrates 22nd anniversary since founding
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have turned out in the Gaza Strip to celebrate the 22nd anniversary of the founding of the Islamist group Hamas. Supporters filled the streets, waving banners and portraits of assassinated Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. The event comes almost a year after a deadly three-week conflict between Israel and Hamas. The Islamist group has controlled Gaza since routing the rival Palestinian Fatah faction from there in June 2007.

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Gaza one year on: The aftermath of a tragedy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
(Opinion) December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Hilmi Samouni still hopes at some point – "inshallah" – to go back to his old job as a kitchen assistant in the Palmyra, Gaza City's best known shwarma restaurant. But unlike his 22-year-old brother Khamiz, who is working once again in a car paint shop, and his 20-year-old cousin Mousa, on a two-year accountancy diploma course at Al Azhar University, Hilmi, who is 26, found that he couldn't cope when he returned to the Palmyra after the war.

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Gaza border: Why Egypt is building a steel underground wall
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Sarah A. Topol - December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Reports that Egypt is building a steel underground wall along its border with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip have fueled speculation about what exactly Cairo intends to accomplish with the project, which British newspapers claim is being carried out with the help of the US Army Corps of Engineers.

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Egypt’s wall is not the cause of Gaza’s woes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) December 10, 2009 - 1:00am

The news is sure to inflame the Arab world: Egypt is building, with US help, a new wall to prevent Gazans from tunnelling into the country. This development becomes all the more contentious since it comes nearly one year after the devastating Israeli assault on the Palestinian territory. But cooler heads must prevail. Any backlash against Egyptian authorities would be undeserved. It is Israel’s blockade, not Egypt’s wall that is starving the Palestinians.

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Who will save Gaza's children?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Victoria Brittain - December 9, 2009 - 1:00am

Among all the complex and long-term solutions being sought in Copenhagen for averting environmental catastrophe across the world, there is one place where the catastrophe has already happened, but could be immediately ameliorated with one simple political act.

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J'lem banning foreign leaders from Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Herb Keinon - December 8, 2009 - 1:00am

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government has an undeclared, but de facto policy, of not letting senior political figures, such as foreign ministers, enter the Gaza Strip from Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned. According to government officials, the reasoning is twofold: to deny Hamas legitimacy that would come of such visits, and as a way of trying to apply pressure over kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit. The policy has come to light after Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin told a parliamentary committee last week that Israel had banned a visit he had hoped to make to Gaza.

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Captive Helps Close the Distance Between Israelis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - December 8, 2009 - 1:00am

When Prof. Gadi Wolfsfeld asks his political science students at Hebrew University if Israel really should free 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including organizers of terrorist attacks, for one seized soldier, as the Israeli government is currently contemplating, he faces a stony silence. “People feel extremely uncomfortable raising it,” he said. “It’s so politically incorrect that you run the risk of being labeled a monster. We all feel like we know this boy and we know his family.”

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