Why Israeli-Palestinian conflicts over land turn epic
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Omar Kasrawi - August 11, 2010 - 12:00am

Standing outside a mausoleum in Jerusalem's Mamilla cemetery, Rawan Dajani bows her head and cups her hands upward in prayer for her ancestor Sheikh Ahmed Dajani. He was buried in Mamilla, the oldest Muslim burial ground in Jerusalem, nearly half a millennium ago. About 200 meters away, a fenced-off construction zone marks the future site of the Center for Human Dignity – Museum of Tolerance, a project overseen by the California-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.

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Israel intends to deport 20,000 Palestinians from Jerusalem: JCSER head
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
August 8, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel intends to deport over 20,000 Palestinians out of Jerusalem whom it said don't have legal residency to stay in the city, a leading Palestinian human rights defender said on Sunday. "Israeli Interior Ministry has already begun deporting Palestinians under the pretext that they stay in Jerusalem illegally," Ziad Hammouri, head of the Jerusalem center for social and economic rights (JCSER), told Xinhua. The new procedure targets West Bank citizens who live in Jerusalem and possess property and ownerships even before Israel occupied the city in 1967, he said.

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The NS Interview: Haneen Zoabi
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from New Statesman
by Samira Shackle - August 6, 2010 - 12:00am

What is it like being a Palestinian in Israel? Israel did everything it could to make us forget our history: controlling education and the media, putting us in a ghetto, preventing us from having normal relations with the Arab world and visiting our families in Syria and Lebanon. Are Arab members of parliament treated differently? Of course. The state treats all Jews and Palestinians differently. Israel doesn't recognise us as the owners of this homeland. The theory is that we have equal civil rights, but the practice is very far from this. Do you endorse a two-state solution?

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Israel indicts 3 Arabs on espionage charges
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
August 5, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel has indicted three Arab men on charges of spying for Syria. The Shin Bet security service reported on Thursday that two Druse Arabs living in the Golan Heights and an Arab citizen of Israel were charged with passing information to the enemy and plotting to kidnap a Syrian pilot who had defected to Israel. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war. The two indicted Druse Arabs — a father and son — are Syrian citizens, like most of the Druse in the Golan Heights.

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Report: Arab children shortchanged by social services
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Ruth Eglash - August 5, 2010 - 12:00am

Children at risk in the Arab sector are less likely to get assistance from social welfare services than Jewish children in similar situations, according to a study published on Wednesday by Sikkuy – The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel. “The Ministry of Welfare and Social Services operates an unequal policy in caring for Jewish and Arab children at risk,” according to the study, which was presented at the organization’s annual conference in Haifa.

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'Israeli Arabs have no choice but to build illegally'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Fadi Eyadat - July 29, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel's Arabs are forced to build illegal housing due to the government's refusal to recognize many of their communities as official towns or to grant them permits for legal construction, according to a study released by the Dirasat - Arab Center for Law and Policy. The dozens of structures Israel razed earlier this week in the Bedouin town of Arkaib are among the 45,000 illegal constructions in unrecognized villages in the Negev. According to Knesset figures, some 1,500 structures like these are built annually in unrecognized villages.

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Israel razes homes in Bedouin village
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - July 28, 2010 - 12:00am

For the sixth time in a decade, farmer Ismail Mohamed Salem watched Israeli bulldozers raze his home in this disputed Bedouin village. Hours later, he sat next to the rubble and vowed to rebuild — yet again. "This is my land," said Salem, 70, as his grandchildren lay sleeping on straw mats next to the demolished structure, now a 20-foot pile of twisted aluminum, broken concrete and splintered wood. "Why should I leave?" Salem's home was among 45 demolished early Tuesday as part of a long-running dispute between Arab tribes in the Negev desert and the Israeli government.

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Israel's harassment of citizens could ignite uprising, warns Arab politician
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by David Hearst - July 26, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel could ignite a third intifada if it continues to push its 1.2 million Arab citizens into a corner, claims Haneen Zoabi, the Arab member of the Knesset vilified for joining the Gaza aid flotilla. Zoabi, who was branded a traitor for her participation in the Gaza convoy, warned that Israel was playing with fire. "We accepted a democratic, liberal state, we voted for the Knesset. But we are not just an internal issue – we are the litmus test of the whole problem. If Israel does not recognise this, conditions will deteriorate towards a third intifada."

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Arab who posed as a Jew jailed for rape 'by deception'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Catrina Stewart - July 21, 2010 - 12:00am

A Palestinian man who masqueraded as a Jew to have sex with a Jewish woman has been convicted of rape "by deception" and sentenced to 18 months in prison. The unusual case underscores the racial tensions between Israel's Jewish and Arab communities, where intimate relations between the two are often regarded as taboo.

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Israeli group gives young Palestinians their first taste of the beach
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Janine Zacharia - July 20, 2010 - 12:00am

Mohammed Shawasha has spent his life in a West Bank village just 37 miles from the sea, but he has never been there. So when the opportunity to spend a day on the Mediterranean coast arose for the 12-year-old Palestinian, he jumped at it. From hilltops across the landlocked West Bank, Palestinians can see the sea, but they can't get there because of Israeli restrictions. Entry permits to Israel are hard to come by, reserved primarily for older Palestinians wishing to pray in Jerusalem, married men with children who hold a job in Israel and those with humanitarian needs.

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