Middle East News: World Press Roundup

Mideast Envoy George Mitchell wraps up his trip to the region by reiterating U.S. support for the Arab Peace Initiative (1) (7). The Jewish Daily Forward examines the controversy over Israeli-operated West Bank quarries (2). A report issued by Human Rights Watch accuses Hamas of killing at least 32 Palestinian political rivals during the Gaza War (4). Analysts warn of a potential increase in West Bank violence (9). The United States reportedly rejects Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people (11). A World Bank report published today finds that, in the West Bank, Israeli settlers get four times more water than Palestinians (13). ATFP Senior Fellow Hussein Ibish condemns anti-Semitic rhetoric in the Khaleej Times (16) and from a speaker at a California University (5).





Mitchell Cites '02 Arab Plan For Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Howard Schneider - April 17, 2009 - 12:00am


White House envoy George J. Mitchell ended two days of talks here with little visible progress between Israelis and Palestinians, but with apparent assent from both sides to pursue peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.


Bibi’s ‘Economic Peace’ Faces Key Test at Quarries
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Jeffay - April 15, 2009 - 12:00am


Complaints over Israel’s conduct on Palestinian land are well-known. Less commonly heard, however, is the accusation that Israel is actually removing the land. “How is it that they are taking our land to Israel?” asked Ibrahim Abder, a Palestinian man standing at a stone quarry near his home a few miles south of Bethlehem during an interview with the Forward.


Israel, Iran and Fear
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Roger Cohen - (Opinion) April 19, 2009 - 12:00am


When I lived in Germany in the 1990s, the return of the capital from Bonn to the scene of the crime, Berlin, prompted agonizing over how to memorialize the Holocaust. Germans thirsted for a “Schlussstrich” — closure with Hitler — even as they acknowledged its impossibility. A large Holocaust memorial was built in Berlin, but not before a leading writer, Martin Walser, had prompted outrage by railing against “the permanent presentation of our shame” and use of Auschwitz as “a moral stick.”


Human Rights Watch accuses Hamas of Gaza killings
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
April 20, 2009 - 12:00am


Human Rights Watch accuses Hamas of Gaza killings Report issued by human rights group says Gaza security forces killed at least 32 Palestinian political rivals, suspected collaborators with Israel during and after Operation Cast Lead. Hamas spokesman denies accusations, says launched investigation into reports of political killings Reuters Hamas security forces killed at least 32 Palestinian political rivals and suspected collaborators with Israel during and after the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.


Recent UCR speaker accused of anti-Semitism
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Press Enterprise
by David Olson - April 18, 2009 - 12:00am


The director of an Inland-based hate-monitoring group is calling on UC Riverside Chancellor Timothy White to denounce a recent campus speaker whom the organization accuses of anti-Semitism. White said through a spokeswoman he will not comment on past statements made by Abdel Malik Ali, who appeared April 11-12 at the Muslim Students' Association western regional conference at UCR.


The Emanuel-Netanyahu Smackdown
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from CQ Politics
by Craig Crawford - (Blog) April 20, 2009 - 12:00am


Imagine Rahm Emanuel and Benjamin Netanyahu in Monday Night Raw, WWE's weekly wrestler smackdown. Emanuel is laying down the law for Israel, making it clear that President Barack Obama wants West Bank territory returned to the Palestinians in exchange for U.S. help in dealing with Iran. Israeli tough guy Netanyahu pushed back. The White House responded by announcing that the President will be out of town for the Prime Minister's trip to Washington next month.


The American Change
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Abdullah Iskandar - (Opinion) April 19, 2009 - 12:00am


The US has taken a big step forward in its outlook on the Arab-Israeli conflict and how to resolve it, ending decades of complete adherence to Israel's stance. It has begun to sense the need to look into the demands of Arabs, i.e. into the demands of the other party to the conflict. Perhaps for the first time in the history of the US dealing with the conflict in the region, Presidential Envoy George Mitchell expressed a truth the Arabs have been pointing out for decades: peace in the Middle East is in the US's interest, with the Arab peace initiative constituting one of its bases.


Israel's discriminatory policy out in the open
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Adel Safty - (Opinion) April 19, 2009 - 12:00am


First, there was the openly racist anti-Arab campaign platform of Avigdor Lieberman, who called for stripping Palestinian Israelis of their citizenship and requiring them to take an oath of allegiance. The strong showing of Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home} in the recent Israeli election validated for many Israelis, Lieberman’s racist views and led some Israeli commentators to wistfully observe that racism was now an acceptable Jewish value in Israel.


West Bank violence set to escalate
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Vita Bekker - April 20, 2009 - 12:00am


A wave of violence in the West Bank last weekend, in which three Palestinians were killed, has prompted some activists and analysts to warn of increased clashes in the Israeli-occupied territory amid a stalled peace process and the rise of a new hardline government in Israel.


Reckoning nears for the US and Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Rami Khouri - April 18, 2009 - 12:00am


The moment of reckoning in US-Israeli relations is approaching much more quickly than could have been anticipated months ago, due to two related developments: the hard-line position of the new Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the obvious, but undeclared, linkages between progress in US-Iranian relations and progress in Arab-Israeli peace-making.


US rejects Netanyahu’s peace talks condition
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Mohammed Mar’i - April 20, 2009 - 12:00am


The United States rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people as a condition for renewing peace talks between the two sides, a report said yesterday. The Israeli daily Haaretz quoted the US State Department as saying in a press statement, during special envoy George Mitchell’s visits over the weekend to Ramallah and Cairo, that Netanyahu’s demand is unacceptable to the US and that the Palestinians need not recognize Israel as Jewish state before talks.


Why I carry a little red light
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Uri Avnery - (Analysis) April 20, 2009 - 12:00am


Perhaps Avigdor Lieberman is only a passing episode in the annals of the State of Israel. Perhaps the fire he is trying to ignite will flicker briefly and go out by itself. Or perhaps the police investigations into the grave corruption affair of which he is suspected will lead to his removal from the public sphere. But the opposite is also possible. Last week he promised his acolytes that the next elections would bring him to power.


World Bank: Israelis get four times more water than Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Avi Issacharoff - (Analysis) April 20, 2009 - 12:00am


The water-supply regime used by Israel and the Palestinians must be changed, according to a World Bank report that is to be published today. The report notes that an average Israeli gets four times as much water as the average Palestinian, and warns that the Palestinian Authority water system is "nearing catastrophe." It concludes by recommending that the current water-distribution arrangement, mandated as part of the Oslo II accords, be changed to improve the Palestinian system.


Obama, Netanyahu, and Zionists Against Occupation
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Bradley Burston - (Analysis) April 20, 2009 - 12:00am


It occurred to me while leaving St. Peter in Chains. I decided to do the very last thing the Jewish People needs: start a new Jewish organization. The inspiration was the unassuming but sublime church of San Pietro in Vincoli [St. Peter in Chains]. Tucked into a back corner of the city, it is home to Michelangelo's monumentally wistful marble of Moses.


Peres to meet Obama before Netanyahu?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Yitzhak Benhorin - April 20, 2009 - 12:00am


Will President Shimon Peres be the first Israeli leader to meet with US President Barack Obama at the White House? Such an option is being looked into in Washington these days, as Peres may replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and address the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference. Netanyahu met with Peres during the Passover holiday, informed him that he would not be able to attend the AIPAC conference in early May, and asked him to represent Israel at the event in his place.


Chop Shop Economics
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Khaleej Times
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) April 17, 2009 - 12:00am


The Opinion article ‘Chop Shop Economics and Stealth Zionism,’ (KT, April 14), casts the economic recovery programme in the United States being led by the Obama administration as a ‘premeditated attempt to loot and destroy the US financial system,’ and lays the blame for this conspiracy squarely at the feet of what the author calls a ‘corrupt network’ of Jewish Americans. This seeks to exploit the current financial crisis facing the American and global economies, and links it to traditional themes of anti-Semitism in a transparent effort to promote fear and hatred ?of Jews.





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