A Palestinian in Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from International Herald Tribune
by Raja Shehadeh - (Blog) July 19, 2012 - 12:00am

Jerusalem — As a tourist visiting the Old City of Jerusalem, seeing Christians, Jews and Muslims walking side by side, hearing church bells ringing and Muslims being called to prayer, you might think the place is a model of tolerance. As a resident of the Old City of Jerusalem, you think differently.

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Palestinian journalists balk at strip search
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
July 16, 2012 - 12:00am

A Palestinian journalist says he and three colleagues trying to cover U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's news conference walked away after being asked to drop their pants in an Israeli security check. The Palestinian journalists were invited to Monday's event by the U.S. consulate, which sent a staffer to guide them through security. Mohammed Abu Khdeir of the Al Quds newspaper says Israeli and foreign journalists were not asked to strip.

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Service to Israel Tugs at Identity of Arab Citizens
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Jodi Rudoren - July 12, 2012 - 12:00am

Three young Palestinian women sat on the floor at a summer camp this week surrounded by Legos and 3-year-olds. As the toddlers played, the women taught them the color of each block, repeating the words in Arabic, azrak for blue or akhdar for green.

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Arab singer in Israeli spotlight after talent show win
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC World News
by Farhana Dawood - July 12, 2012 - 12:00am

A young Israeli Arab woman who won a popular Israeli TV music talent show has become an unlikely star in a country where suspicion and hostility often mark relations between Israel's minority Arab population and the Jewish majority. Nissren Kader won first place on a programme that seeks to find the best singer of Mizrahi songs - the musical tradition of Middle Eastern Jews. The past few months have been an incredible journey for Ms Kader, who used to work as a wedding singer in the coastal city of Haifa.

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East Jerusalem residents suffer from severe water shortages
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
July 11, 2012 - 12:00am

Tens of thousands of Israeli Arabs in east Jerusalem are coping with severe water shortages, while official bodies bicker over the reasons. According to Gihon, the Jerusalem Municipality's water company, the disruptions are caused by illegal tapping into the water system. "There is a widespread phenomenon of water theft in this area, which we have been warning the water authority about for a very long time.

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Crossing Religious Lines in an Israeli Hospital
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Souad Mekhennet - July 10, 2012 - 12:00am

Hadassah-Ein Kerem hospital. Doctors and nurses hover over patients. Manar Igbarya, 25, is giving a woman an injection and inspecting a bandage on her right leg. The Orthodox patient is absorbed in talking to her visiting husband. Everyone is chatting in Hebrew; nothing in this scene seems unusual, except that Ms. Igbarya is a Palestinian Muslim.

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Israeli policemen jailed over death of Palestinian
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Maayan Lubell - July 9, 2012 - 12:00am

An Israeli court on Monday sentenced two policemen to 30 months in jail each over the death of a Palestinian detainee whom they abandoned on the side of a highway in the middle of the night. In 2008, Omar Abu Jarban was hospitalised for two weeks in Israel after entering illegally and crashing a car he had stolen, Jerusalem Magistrate's Court said in its ruling. After being discharged, Israel ordered him deported rather than prosecuted, but two days later he was found dead, apparently of dehydration, just over the boundary of the occupied West Bank.

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U.K. slams Israel with stiff upper lip: Not all Palestinian kids are potential terrorists
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - July 9, 2012 - 12:00am

"A Palestinian child is a potential terrorist," an IDF prosecutor candidly told a delegation of nine visiting British lawyers. The attorneys, who visited Israel for a week in September 2011, reviewed and analyzed Israeli law and practice regarding the detention and prosecution of Palestinian children. Britain's foreign ministry financed the delegation's visit, which appeared to raise the bar a notch; after both British houses of parliament debated the issue last year, after several British MPs paid visits to the military court next to Ofer prison.

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Boosting Arab employment
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Kenneth Bandler - (Opinion) July 9, 2012 - 12:00am

How to improve the economic conditions of minority populations is a challenge for any democracy, all the more so for one as young as Israel. The country’s non-governmental organizations devoted to advancing Jewish-Arab relations have long advocated concrete steps to integrate citizens into the nation’s workforce. In recent years some government officials have for measures to increase the numbers of qualified Arab workers.

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Reality Check
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Jeff Barak - (Opinion) July 8, 2012 - 12:00am

The decision facing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is really quite simple: either do what’s best for the country or just tread water and survive another year in office. The first choice requires courage; the second demands nothing beyond the competence of any third-rate politician. Any guesses as to which path our prime minister will choose? Hint: At the very last second, just before the Knesset was about to disperse in May, Netanyahu chose to expand his coalition by throwing a lifeline to a sinking Kadima rather than risk facing the voters.

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