Israel punishes Palestinian hunger-strikers
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Jihan Abdalla - April 23, 2012 - 12:00am

RAMALLAH, West Bank, April 23 (Reuters) - Israel has taken measures against some 1,200 Palestinian prisoners on a hunger strike, denying them family visits and separating them from inmates not taking part in the protest, prison authorities said on Monday. The open-ended strike, dubbed the "battle of empty stomachs" by organisers, began last Tuesday. The prisoners are demanding better jail conditions and for Israel to end detention without trial for Palestinians suspected of security offences.

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OutFront exclusive: Erin Burnett interviews Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Erin Burnett - (Interview) April 23, 2012 - 12:00am

In an exclusive interview Tuesday night on CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront, Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat down with Erin Burnett to talk about Israel, the United States and the threat of terror around the world. Netanyahu insisted on Monday that Egypt's decision to cancel a natural gas deal with Israel did not indicate any sort of diplomatic tensions between the two countries, but rather a business disagreement between companies.

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Military chief: Israel increases covert operations
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
April 22, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — Israel's military chief of staff says he has ordered his forces to step up covert operations in enemy countries. Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz made the remarks Sunday in an interview published in Israel's Yediot Ahronot daily. "You almost won't find a point in time where something isn't happening somewhere in the world," he said. "I am escalating all those special operations." Gantz did not identify any of the countries or give any further details. He said 2012 is a critical year in the standoff between Israel and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program.

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Israeli commandoes raid ship searching for arms
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Ian Deitch - April 22, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — Israeli military officials say navy commandoes have raided a ship flying a Liberian flag on suspicion it was carrying weapons destined for anti-Israel militants. Israeli media reported the ship was searched and then released after no weapons were found. The officials said that Israeli forces boarded the vessel Sunday about 160 kilometers (100 miles) off Israel's coast. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. They said the ship was suspected of smuggling arms but would not disclose further details, calling the raid "routine."

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For Israel, Assad's Regime Lesser of Two Evils
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from An-Nahar
by Randa Haidar - (Opinion) April 20, 2012 - 12:00am

It seems that Israel would prefer that Bashar al-Assad’s regime survive rather than see Syria turn into another “failed state” like its neighbors Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. These states suffer from a weak central authority and the collapse of state institutions as a result of internal fighting, chaos and competition among armed groups over control of political life.

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Israeli Official: Rockets Fired Toward Israel Were Smuggled From Libya after Gadhafi’s Fall
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
April 20, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — An Israeli defense official says rockets fired from Egypt toward Israel this month were smuggled from Libya. Israel says at least two rockets were launched from Egypt’s Sinai desert at the Israeli resort town of Eilat. No one was hurt. Egypt denies the rockets were fired from its territory. Libya has become an illicit source of weapons since the fall of dictator Moammar Gadhafi last year.

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Medics: Palestinian Teen Shot During Israeli Military Training
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
April 20, 2012 - 12:00am

TUBAS (Ma'an) -- Israeli soldiers shot an 18-year-old shepherd in the chest on Thursday evening during military training exercises in the northern West Bank, medics said. Yasir Suleiman Nijad Kaabnah was shot while herding sheep and camels near Wadi al-Maleh in the northern Jordan Valley, medics told Ma'an. Salem Kaabneh, the victim's uncle who was with him when he was shot, told Ma'an that Israeli troops who were training in the area fired at Suleiman injuring him in the chest.

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Grilling of Top Palestinian Militant Exposes Arafat’s Link to Terror Attacks on Israelis, papers Show
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff - April 20, 2012 - 12:00am

On April 15, 2002, 10 years ago this week, Marwan Barghouti, the secretary general of Fatah's Tanzim militia, was arrested by members of the undercover Duvdevan unit of the Israel Defense Forces in Ramallah. His capture was preceded by two weeks of cat-and-mouse games with the IDF and the Shin Bet security service, during which the Israelis also disseminated threatening hints about an intention to assassinate him.

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Israel's diminishing power
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Patrick Seale - (Opinion) April 20, 2012 - 12:00am

Although it is too early to make a judgement, it looks as if Israel's Iran policy has back-fired and may result in a very different outcome from the one Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long sought. Israel's thinking these past three years has been that punitive sanctions, cyber warfare and the assassination of Iran's nuclear scientists must eventually force a crippled Islamic Republic to agree to ‘zero enrichment' of uranium — that is to say to dismantle its entire nuclear programme.

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Israel's army sacrificed IDF officer on the altar of PR
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Israel Harel - (Opinion) April 19, 2012 - 12:00am

"You shouldn't join the chorus of rabbis and politicians who are trying to make Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner's case into one that divides the religious and the secular, and the left from the right," B. begged me. B.'s views are well considered and highly regarded. From his point of view, the media lynching of Eisner, after a recording surfaced on the Internet of a confrontation in which the officer hit a Danish activist in the face, has engendered precisely the opposite reaction - a natural sense of empathy with Eisner that cuts across various communities.

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