Arabs in Israel plan to strike on October 1
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Jonathan Cook - September 9, 2009 - 12:00am

The increasingly harsh political climate in Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government has prompted the leadership of the country’s 1.3 million Arab citizens to call the first general strike in several years. The one-day stoppage is due to take place on October 1, a date heavy with symbolism because it marks the anniversary of another general strike, in 2000 at the start of the second intifada when 13 Arab demonstrators were shot dead by Israeli police.

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Palestinian workers seek livelihood in Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Erika Soloman - September 8, 2009 - 12:00am

Before dawn, a crackling sound breaks up the cool, still air, as boots tread over rocks on a 7-km (4-mile)-long path that leads hundreds of illegal Palestinian workers into Israel each day. None holds an Israeli work permit and as the laborers make their way from the occupied West Bank, they risk a dangerous run-in with Israeli paramilitary border police. The small Arab village of Beit Iksa , nestled among foothills and surrounded by Jewish settlements, opens out to a dark panorama of Jerusalem studded by twinkling street lights.

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From Arab to Palestinian Israeli: One family's changing identity
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Moment Magazine
by Dina Kraft - September 2, 2009 - 12:00am

It’s been almost three years since Shams Kalboni renamed herself. She grew up with the modern Hebrew name Revital, which means “quenched thirst.” It was given to her by her Arab parents in the hope it would pave her way to an easier life in Israeli society. And as Shams walks past blossoming purple bougainvillea plants, up the stairs and onto the veranda of her grandmother’s house in Jaffa, calls of “Revital” and “Revi” still greet her as she is embraced by aunts and cousins.

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PA blames Israel for prisoners' sickness
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
September 1, 2009 - 12:00am

A Palestinian Authority minister said Israel was not doing enough to maintain the health of Palestinian prisoners. Prisoner Affairs' Minister Issa Karaki was quoted by the Palestinian Ma'an news agency on Monday as saying that the recent discovery of cancer in 25 Palestinian prisoners "was a troubling phenomenon which indicates the decline in Palestinian prisoners' health conditions and the lack of minimal medical care."

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Israeli-Arab indicted for Ashkenazi plot
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Yaakov Katz - August 31, 2009 - 12:00am

Hizbullah recruited an Israeli-Arab and ordered him to collect intelligence on IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi ahead of plans to assassinate him to avenge the death of the guerrilla group's military leader Imad Mughniyeh. On Monday, an indictment was filed at the Petah Tikva District Court against Rawi Sultani, a 23-year-old Israeli-Arab from the town of Tira, alleging that he was recruited by Hizbullah in the summer of 2008 when he traveled to Morocco to attend a Balad Party summer camp.

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Israel arrests 5 Palestinians ahead of Ramadan prayers
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
August 28, 2009 - 12:00am

Jerusalem Police on Friday arrested five Palestinians in the vicinity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Temple Mount ahead of Ramadan prayers, Israel Radio reported. One of the men, a resident of the Isawiyah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, attacked a police officer and lightly hurt him after being asked to undergo a security check. Another man, a resident of Rahat, was arrested for carrying a knife, while a Gaza man was detained for being in the area without a permit.

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US shifting stance on settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Jazeera English
by Mark Levine - August 27, 2009 - 12:00am

The US has long seen itself as playing a crucial role in bringing about Israeli-Palestinian peace. Yet, US policy toward Israeli actions in and around Jerusalem has shifted over time. Initially, the Johnson administration took a strong line, with UN representative Arthur Goldberg explaining a week after the 1967 war ended that "the United States does not accept or recognise these measures as altering the status of Jerusalem."

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Israel's anti-immigration immigrants
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Seth Freedman - August 11, 2009 - 12:00am

Well over a million of Israel's population come from the former Soviet Union (FSU), representing more than 15% of the total population – hence the political views of the Russian immigrant community are not easily brushed under the carpet. Their collective stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is credited with sweeping Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party into the upper echelons of power at the last election, and on the strength of the latest poll from the Israel Democracy Institute, it's not hard to see why Lieberman has become the poster boy of the Russian right.

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The continuing Nakba
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The San Francisco Chronicle
by Timothy Crawley - August 4, 2009 - 12:00am

Walk down what was formerly Al-Borj Street in Haifa, Israel, and you might catch sight of an old Jerusalem-stone building with arched doorways and windows cemented-over and a large Re/Max (an international real estate franchise) banner draped across the front. The house belongs to the Kanafani family, most of whom are living in exile in Lebanon but some of whom are now living as far away from home as San Francisco.

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U.S. condemns eviction of Arab families from East Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Nir Hasson, Barak Ravid - August 3, 2009 - 12:00am

The United States and the United Nations sharply condemned the eviction of two Palestinian families from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and their replacement with Jewish families on Sunday. Diplomats from the U.S. Embassy sent a protest letter to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, stressing the move went against the spirit of the road map. The diplomats said a high-level protest will be communicated to Israel later on Monday.

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