Poll: 46% of high-schoolers don't want equality for Arabs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Yaheli Moran Zelikovich - March 11, 2010 - 1:00am

Racism and refusal to evacuate alongside support for a democratic system of government – these are the jumbled sentiment of Israel's high school students, according to a recent poll. They support a democratic form of government, but more than half of them believe that Arabs should not be allowed to vote in Knesset elections. One out of every six students would not want to study in the same class with an Ethiopian or an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, and 21% of them think that "Death to Arabs" is a legitimate expression.

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Families fight 'racist' Israeli citizenship law
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Heather Sharp - March 9, 2010 - 1:00am

"To leave my children, I would die. I couldn't do it," says Lana Khatib. Five years ago, Israel's controversial citizenship law marred her first year of marriage and still looms large over everything from supermarket shopping to her fears the family might face the prospect of separation. Adnan, who is three, and one-year-old Yosra squabble over their toys. Born and raised in Israel, they are too young to understand that their parents both consider themselves Palestinian, but their father Taiseer is an Israeli citizen while their mother is from the occupied West Bank.

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Israel has its faults, but apartheid isn't one of them
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Richard Cohen - (Opinion) March 2, 2010 - 1:00am

Toward the end of last year, Jimmy Carter apologized for some of his very harsh statements about Israel. In an "open letter to the Jewish community" -- and with a vagueness that ill becomes him -- he airily mentioned criticisms that "stigmatize Israel" but omitted his own contribution: the implication that Israel is, like the racist South Africa of old, an "apartheid" state.

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Telling Film Floats Between Art and the Actual
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Jerrold Kessel, Pierre Klochendler - February 15, 2010 - 1:00am

'Ajami' starts as a case of mistaken identity in a semi-tribal, semi-criminal feud: a kid fixing a car in the streets of Ajami, a nondescript Arab neighbourhood of the Mediterranean city of Jaffa, is killed in a drive-by shooting. Soon, a backdrop of acute poverty, crime and social decay evolves into a powerful tale of suffering, vengeance, and survival. 'Ajami' is a somehow a worst-case scenario of lives cast in tragic circumstances, a mirror image of the many conflicts that subdue the lives of Jews and Arabs within Israel/Palestine.

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Confronting Settlement Expansion in East Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Middle East Report
by Joel Beinin - February 14, 2010 - 1:00am

The neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, a 20-minute walk up the hill from the Damascus Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem, has become the focal point of the struggle over the expanding project of Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

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Building a peaceful future
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Seth Freedman - (Opinion) February 8, 2010 - 1:00am

For all that Jerusalem is perpetually mired in clashes between rival groups of Arab and Jewish residents, there appears to be a glimmer of hope. Plans were announced recently for a fully integrated mixed neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city, in a move which could herald a change in the way Jews and Arabs coexist in the Holy City.

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Arab politicians 'facing increased persecution’ in Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Jonathan Cook - February 2, 2010 - 1:00am

Leaders of the Arab minority in Israel warned this week that they were facing an unprecedented campaign of persecution, backed by the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu, designed to stop their political activities. The warning came after Said Nafaa, a Druze member of the Israeli parliament was stripped of his immunity last week, clearing the way for him to be tried for a visit to Syria three years ago.

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Israeli left needs to wake up before it's too late
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) January 31, 2010 - 1:00am

Looking at the way the right acts makes one go green with envy and want to learn from them. Four hundred criminal cases opened against opponents of the 2005 Gaza Strip disengagement, people who threw oil, acid, garbage and stones at soldiers and police, were closed last week and their criminal record expunged. Fifty-one MKs voted in favor of the closure, nine against. That is the true map of Israeli politics (and society). Only about seven percent of the lawmakers believed that this was a worthless and dangerous decision.

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Rattling the Cage: Segregation blues
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Larry Derfner - (Opinion) January 27, 2010 - 1:00am

I spent the day in Nazareth recently, doing a story about Israeli Arabs in hi-tech, and when I got in the car with the (Jewish) photographer to leave, I said to him, "Isn't it a relief to talk to Arabs as regular people?" He smiled in agreement.

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These Palestinians aren't happy about Israel settlement freeze
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Ilene Prusher - January 26, 2010 - 1:00am

Theoretically, the 10-month freeze on building Israeli settlements in the West Bank was supposed to benefit the Palestinian cause. But at the run-down cafes that make up a town square of sorts here in the Jalazon Refugee Camp, there’s a different story. It’s just before noon, and the area is full of young men with nowhere to go.

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