Middle East News: World Press Roundup

Ha'aretz reports that Ismail Haniyeh has been secretly elected by a “significant margin” to head Hamas' Political Bureau in Gaza, while several noted "moderates" were not elected to the committee. Israel recognizes three “unauthorized” settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank. PM Netanyahu is asking Israel Supreme Court to defer eviction orders against more "unauthorized" outposts. Hamas says it will start teaching Hebrew in Gaza high schools next year. Israel has options for dealing with the cut off of natural gas from Egypt. Israel is punishing hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners. UNRWA inaugurates a Dutch-funded housing project for 1,300 Palestinians in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. Israel bans a textbook that encourages respect for the rights of Palestinian citizens. Palestinian officials say they will ask the UN Security Council to censure Israel on settlement expansion. Several websites are reportedly being blocked by the PA, many reportedly “loyal to Muhammad Dahlan.” Yasser Abed Rabbo has reportedly been dismissed as the PA media supervisor because he declined to join an official Palestinian delegation to deliver a letter to PM Netanyahu. Israeli officials reportedly describe a 60 Minutes report on the plight of Palestinian Christians as a “strategic terror attack." COMMENTARY: Ami Ayalon, Orni Petruschka and Gilead Sher say Israel should begin to unilaterally establish new de facto borders along the security barrier lines in the occupied West Bank. AP interviews PLO official Qureia, who expresses growing Palestinian doubts about the plausibility of a two-state solution. Ha'aretz says the natural gas dispute with Egyptian should not become a political issue, but Gershon Baskin says it is another sign of Israel's deteriorating relations with all its neighbors. Sefi Rachlevsky says that by attempting to bypass the High Court, the Knesset is, in effect, planning to end Israel's democracy. Zalman Shoval says there are many possible scenarios that could unfold, but a single Israeli-Palestinian state is not one of them. Joseph Dana says it's obvious that Israel is trying to seize all of occupied East Jerusalem permanently. Ben Caspit says FM Lieberman told him he's more "worried about Egypt than Iran." Efraim Inbar says the problem with Kadima leader Mofaz's peace ideas is that neither side would accept them. Hussein Ibish says in a recent interview with The Forward Hamas leader Abu Marzook demonstrated yet again that the group is not capable of leading the Palestinian national movement.

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Hamas holds secret elections, picks Haniyeh as head of Gaza politburo ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Avi Issacharoff - April 24, 2012 - 12:00am Hamas recently held secret elections for the leadership of the organization's Gaza political bureau, officials in the militant group told Haaretz. According to the officials, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh won the race by a significant margin. The win in effect makes Haniyeh the Strip's first recognized Hamas political leader since Israel's assassination of Hamas' former Gaza political chief Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi in 2004. » Read more

Israel legalizes West Bank settler outposts ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press by Amy Teibel - April 24, 2012 - 12:00am JERUSALEM — Israel legalized three unsanctioned West Bank settler outposts and was trying to save another on Tuesday, infuriating the Palestinians as the chief American Mideast envoy was in the region laboring to revive peace efforts. The decision fueled suspicions that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hardline coalition would try to legalize as many rogue settlement sites as possible to cement Israel's hold on occupied land the Palestinians claim for a state. » Read more

Israel to seek deferral of settler evictions ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press April 23, 2012 - 12:00am JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday he would ask Israel's Supreme Court to defer next week's deadline for demolishing five apartment buildings erected illegally for settlers in the West Bank. The court has ruled that the buildings, which house 30 families in the unauthorized Ulpana outpost on the fringes of the Beit El settlement, must be razed by May 1 because they were built on privately owned Palestinian land. Netanyahu said his government is looking for "legal" ways to prevent the buildings from being demolished. » Read more

Gaza's Hamas rulers to introduce Hebrew ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press April 23, 2012 - 12:00am GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A senior Hamas official in Gaza says the territory's militant rulers intend to begin teaching Hebrew for high school students beginning next year. Ziad Thabet, the education ministry undersecretary, said Monday the government is trying to find and train teachers. He says students should be introduced to as many languages as possible. Hebrew, the chief language of Israelis, is now only offered as a university course. Thabet says the Gaza government still needs to approve the decision, but it is likely to go ahead. » Read more

Israel has options to overcome loss of Egyptian gas ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Ari Rabinovitch - April 23, 2012 - 12:00am JERUSALEM, April 23 (Reuters) - Israel's energy sector will be hurt in the short term by Egypt's decision to stop selling it natural gas, but the country has been weaning itself off the once-crucial supplies and has a number of contingency plans that will lessen the impact. Sunday's announcement that Egyptian state-owned oil and gas companies would stop the gas sales, which were part of a 20-year deal, was the dramatic conclusion to a year of sabotage and pipeline attacks that had already disrupted supplies. » Read more

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. » Read more

UNRWA inaugurates Dutch-funded housing project for 1,300 Gazans ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua April 24, 2012 - 12:00am GAZA, April 24 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) on Tuesday inaugurated a housing project, funded by the Netherlands, to reside 1,300 Palestinian homeless in southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis. The UNRWA said in a press statement that the houses, funded by a 7.2-million-U.S. dollar donation from the Dutch government, will provide shelter to 1,300 Palestinians in western Khan Younis refugee camp. » Read more

Israel bans a textbook promoting Arab rights as 'unbalanced' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Ben Lynfield - April 23, 2012 - 12:00am The right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has banned a high school civics textbook as "unbalanced," a move critics say is part of a broader bid to shift Israel's values in a direction that is more nationalistic and less democratic. Officials cited factual errors in the book as the main factor in the decision. But liberal educators say the errors could easily be corrected and that the larger issue is a national struggle to define Israel's identity. » Read more

Erekat: PLO to ask Security Council for settlement censure ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency April 24, 2012 - 12:00am JERICHO (Ma'an) -- PLO official Saeb Erekat said Tuesday that Palestinian leaders are examining ways to secure a resolution from the UN Security Council condemning Israeli settlement building, after Israel gave legal sanction to three settler outposts. In an interview with official PA radio Voice of Palestine, Erekat called on the Israeli government to choose between peace and settlement expansion, warning that sanctioning more settlements on Palestinian land will kill the two-state solution. » Read more

Clampdown on Palestinian media spreads to the Web ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency by George Hale - April 24, 2012 - 12:00am BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian Authority has quietly instructed Internet providers to block access to news websites whose reporting is critical of President Mahmoud Abbas, according to senior government officials and data analyzed by network security experts. » Read more

Abbas sacks supervisor of official Palestinian media ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua April 24, 2012 - 12:00am RAMALLAH, April 24 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sacked Yasser Abed Rabbo, media supervisor of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) due to their disagreements, an Palestinian source said on Tuesday. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Xinhua that sacking Abed Rabbo as a media supervisor "doesn't mean that he was sacked as the Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee." » Read more

CBS's 'Strategic Terror Attack' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Nathan Guttman - (Blog) April 23, 2012 - 12:00am A controversial report aired by CBS News has pitted Israel’s top envoy to the United States against the network’s flagship news show and now has the Jewish community up in arms. » Read more

Peace Without Partners ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Ami Ayalon, Orni Petruschka, Gilead Sher - (Opinion) April 23, 2012 - 12:00am FOR three years, attempts at negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership have failed because of a lack of trust. It now seems highly unlikely that the two sides will return to negotiations — but that does not mean the status quo must be frozen in place. Israel doesn’t need to wait for a final-status deal with the Palestinians. What it needs is a radically new unilateral approach: It should set the conditions for a territorial compromise based on the principle of two states for two peoples, which is essential for Israel’s future as both a Jewish and a democratic state. » Read more

AP Interview: Palestinian doubts 2-state solution ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press by Dan Perry - (Analysis) April 23, 2012 - 12:00am ABU DIS, West Bank — With gloom deepening over prospects for peace, a leading Palestinian is suggesting they might drop the "two-state solution" that has underpinned two decades of negotiations, aiming for Israel and a Palestinian state next to each other. Instead, Palestinians might seek a multi-ethnic state covering all of historic Palestine — including today's Israel, said former Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia in an interview at his office in this West Bank town. » Read more

Israel must keep gas dispute with Egypt apolitical ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz (Editorial) April 24, 2012 - 12:00am The suspension (or cancellation) of Egypt's natural gas agreement with Israel has prompted extensive fear about bilateral relations, to the point that some see it as the first step toward scrapping the Camp David Accords. » Read more

The sunshine over the horizon ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Gershon Baskin - (Opinion) April 23, 2012 - 12:00am The unilateral Egyptian decision to cancel the gas deal with Israel is another sad benchmark in the deterioration of relations between Israel and its neighbors. This cancelation is a clear violation of the agreement between the two countries, which beyond its economic importance to both sides is a blow to status of the peace between Israel and Egypt. » Read more

Bill seeking to bypass Supreme Court aims to end democracy ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Sefi Rachlevsky - (Opinion) April 24, 2012 - 12:00am If you spent time as a child in a crowded chicken coop, you will have had difficulty forgetting the scene. When one of the hens is injured, her "sister" hens immediately begin forming a cloud overhead. The entire coop is engulfed in a whirlwind of dust. Within half a minute, all that is left of the injured hen is the dust of its bones. A few seconds later, it is business as usual in the coop. (In nature, where chickens are not locked up, there are no scenes like that.) » Read more

‘One state’ means no state ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Zalman Shoval - (Opinion) April 23, 2012 - 12:00am The next round of Israeli-Palestinian talks is in the offing, but it will probably turn out to be as futile as the last one. At least as long as the Palestinian leadership persists in its unrealistic preconditions, i.e. Israel to accept a priori the 1967 armistice line as the border of the proposed Palestinian state, and stopping all construction beyond that line, including in Jerusalem. » Read more

Israel's strategy to seize Jerusalem on display for all to see ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Joseph Dana - (Opinion) April 25, 2012 - 12:00am By now, news of Palestinian being evicted from their homes in East Jerusalem is routine. Last week, two more Palestinian families were thrown into the street to make way for Jewish settlers in the neighbourhood of Beit Hanina. The mechanism of land confiscation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank has become a near science for Israeli authorities, ensuring that the exact borders of Israel remain unclear and constantly shifting. » Read more

Israeli Foreign Minister: I Worry More About Egypt Than Iran ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'ariv by Ben Caspit - (Analysis) April 23, 2012 - 12:00am Israel is worried that the Egyptian revolution may turn against Israel. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sent a warning document to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, recommending that three or four special divisions be designated to protect the southern border with Egypt. In his view, the situation in Egypt is worsening and may create pressure on the leadership to unite the nation around an external enemy — Israel. » Read more

Both sides will reject it ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons by Efraim Inbar - (Opinion) April 23, 2012 - 12:00am Having recently won the struggle for the Kadima party leadership, Shaul Mofaz now plans to position himself as a serious alternative to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. While the polls so far do not show any significant increase in Kadima's appeal to voters, Mofaz is a focused, hardworking politician who cannot easily be dismissed as a mere irritant to the Likud and Netanyahu, which seem to have a hold on the Israeli electorate. He has the necessary national security experience--as former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff and minister of defense--to take on the prime ministerial quest. » Read more

Hamas Still Not Ready for Prime Time ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Hussein Ibish - (Blog) April 23, 2012 - 12:00am In a wide-ranging interview with the Jewish Daily Forward, Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook again demonstrated the difficult position in which his organization finds itself. Due to the Arab uprisings, the region’s strategic landscape is now primarily defined by sectarian allegiances. As a result, Hamas's external leadership is trying to reintegrate the organization into the mainstream Sunni Arab fold, cultivating closer ties with states like Qatar, Jordan and Egypt, while distancing itself from Iran and abandoning Syria altogether. » Read more

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