October 3rd

Breaking the Silence
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Cherrie Heywood - October 2, 2008 - 8:00pm

An Israeli police commander has called them "provocateurs", "militants", and, "lawbreakers". Earlier in the year the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) decided that their presence in the city of Hebron, 30km south of Jerusalem in the Palestinian West Bank, constituted a security threat and banned them from the city, stating that any member of the organisation caught there would be expelled forthwith.

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Jewish settlers, rabbis clash over West Bank olives
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
October 2, 2008 - 8:00pm

Militant Jewish settlers clashed with activists of the Rabbis for Human Rights movement near the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday as they protected Palestinians beginning the annual olive harvest. Israeli police and soldiers grappled with settlers who tried to drive off local Palestinians and international supporters of Palestinian rights in the Israel-occupied territories. "This is just the beginning of the olive harvest which will be going on for the next two months," said the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, Arik Ascherman.

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Jewish terrorism threatens Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Telegraph
by Tim Butcher - October 2, 2008 - 8:00pm

Professor Zeev Sternhell knows as much as anyone about the current threat from Jewish terrorism. His right leg is recovering from shrapnel caused when a bomb, believed to have been the work of right-wing Jewish extremists, exploded outside the front door of his Jerusalem apartment last week. While Arab-Jewish violence is common, the attack on the 73-year-old historian has shocked public opinion in Israel because all the evidence points to it being intra-Jewish. "I consider it an act of Jewish terrorism," he said in an interview from the modest apartment where the bomb exploded.

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Israel’s top general in the West Bank acknowledges that ‘hundreds’ of settlers in the area have engaged in violence against Palestinians and Israeli soldiers (1) (5). Israeli Professor Zeev Sternhell blames “Jewish terrorists” for the recent pipe bomb attack on his home (2). Results from a new poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion show Palestinians continuing to favor current president Mahmoud Abbas for another term over Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh (3). The IDF evacuates a settlement in the northern West Bank (6) (9).

Egypt to host 'Annapolis 2' peace summit in November
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - October 1, 2008 - 8:00pm

An international summit is to be held in Egypt in November, with representatives from Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the members of the Quartet - the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. According to a senior official in Jerusalem, the Israeli and PA participants will brief the Quartet over progress made in the ongoing peace talks.

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Settlers cleared from West Bank outpost; Palestinian olive grove set on fire
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Erfat Weiss - October 1, 2008 - 8:00pm

IDF forces and Civil Administration officials Thursday morning cleared settlers from the northern West Bank outpost of Shvut Ami, and two hours later a nearby olive grove belonging to Palestinians from the village of Kadum was set on fire. Former Kedumim Council head Daniela Weiss arrived at the scene and was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer. Investigators later reported that two suspects of the arson had been found hiding in her home. Both are 25-year-old settlers, one from Hebron and one from Adi-Ad.

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PA, Hamas mutually release prisoners
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Khaled Abu Toameh - October 1, 2008 - 8:00pm

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday ordered the release of 40 Hamas members from PA prisons in the West Bank as a "goodwill gesture" to the Islamic movement on the occasion of the Muslim feast of Id al-Fitr. Palestinian Authority... The decision came two days after Hamas released 30 Fatah members who were being held in its prisons in the Gaza Strip. The Hamas government said that move was also a "goodwill gesture" for the Muslim holiday.

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Third Palestinian Uprising Possible
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Middle East Times
by Cherrie Heywood - October 1, 2008 - 8:00pm

A senior Palestinian politician and member of Fatah, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA) of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has warned of the possibility of a third Palestinian uprising or Intifada. Kadoura Fares, a leader of the Palestinian peace coalition, demanded at a conference in Tel Aviv on the Geneva Initiative last week, that Abbas or Abu Mazen as he is better known, halt peace talks with Israel citing a lack of progress on the ground.

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Israel evacuates illegal settlement in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)
December 31, 1969 - 8:00pm

Israeli occupation forces on Thursday forced Jewish settlers out of an illegal settlement in northern West Bank, Israel Radio said. This came following confrontations between Israeli forces and Jewish settlers, who pelted stones at the former, but no casualties were reported, it said. Jewish settlers also set ablaze nearby farmland close to Qalqylia. They have recently stepped up their aggressions on Palestinians and their property in the West Bank.

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Israeli general says settler violence increasing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Jeffrey Heller - October 1, 2008 - 8:00pm

Hundreds of Jewish settlers are engaged in violence against Palestinians and Israeli soldiers who get in their way, Israel's top general in the occupied West Bank said in remarks published on Thursday. "In the past, only a few dozen individuals took part in such activity but today that number has grown into the hundreds. That's a very significant change," Major-General Gadi Shamni said in an interview with the Haaretz newspaper.

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