October 3rd

NY judge OKs lawsuit seeking damages from PLO for terror acts in Israel against US citizens
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Larry Neumeister - September 29, 2008 - 8:00pm

The Palestine Liberation Organization can't win dismissal of a lawsuit by victims of bombings in Israel by claiming the attacks were acts of war rather than terrorism, a judge ruled Tuesday. U.S. District Judge George Daniels said the 2004 lawsuit on behalf of victims and their families can proceed toward trial. It seeks up to $3 billion in damages from attacks between January 2001 and February 2004.

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Palestinians Pick Abbas Over Haniyeh
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Angus Reid Global Monitor
September 23, 2008 - 8:00pm

Few people are ready to elect Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to run the Palestinian Authority, according to a poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (PCPO). If Haniyeh ran for the presidency against Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, Haniyeh would get 24.8 per cent of the vote, while Abbas would garner 46.6 per cent. In a different scenario, Haniyeh would also lose with 25.7 per cent of the vote against 48 per cent for Marwan Barghouthi, a Fatah member currently serving time in an Israeli jail.

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How I became a target for Israel's 'Jewish terrorists'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
October 1, 2008 - 8:00pm

Zeev Sternhell is careful about his choice of words when he unhesitatingly calls the pipe bomb which exploded outside his front door last week "an act of Jewish terrorism." As a Holocaust survivor orphaned by the age of seven and a combat veteran of Israel's wars, Professor Sternhell, 73, who was lucky to have only been injured in the leg by flying shrapnel from the bomb, is "horrified" not for himself but because it might have hit his wife, daughter his grandchildren on one of their sleepovers, or their neighbours. "It was a terror act because they couldn't know who would have been hit."

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October 2nd

'Hundreds join' settler violence
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
October 1, 2008 - 8:00pm

Hundreds of settlers are engaged in violence against Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, the senior Israeli commander in the West Bank has said. Majr-Gen Gadi Shamni said diverting military resources to deal with settlers impaired the army's ability to carry out operations against militants. A recent UN report recorded 222 acts of settler violence in the first half of 2008 compared with 291 in all of 2007. Palestinians have long complained of settler harassment and intimidation. They have also complained the Israeli military does little to stop or restrain the settlers.

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October 1st

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s remarks on withdrawing from the West Bank and East Jerusalem continue to draw commentary (1). The behavior of Israeli settlers is questioned in articles by the Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor (2) (3). Bahrain’s foreign minister proposes a Middle East Forum to address the regions problems (6). The UN finds that the number of Israeli road blocks in the West Bank is increasing (8).

Dozens of Palestinians to resettle in Sweden
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
September 29, 2008 - 8:00pm

Thirty-nine Palestinians on Tuesday left for Hungary on board a plane en route to Sweden where they are resettling. The 39 are among nearly 160 Palestinians that Sweden has agreed to take from among hundreds of Palestinians who have been stranded in makeshift camps in Iraq. Earlier this month, 25 Palestinians left for Iceland and 117 went to Chile in January. Palestinians in Iraq have become a target for persecution in recent years because they are seen as having been favoured under Saddam Hussain's regime.


Khamenei: Iran will never abandon Hamas, its holy warrior Haniyeh
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Natasha Mozgovaya - September 30, 2008 - 8:00pm

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday said his country will stand beside Gaza's Hamas rulers and that Israel is on the path to eventual destruction. According to Iranian state-run TV, Khamenei called Hamas' prime minister in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, a "mojahed," or soldier of holy war, saying the Iranian nation will "never let you be alone." It also quoted him as saying Israel's Zionist regime is moving toward weakness, destruction and defeat and that the current generation of Palestinians will see "that great day."

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Israel's West Bank roadblocks increasing, says UN
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Wafa Amr - September 29, 2008 - 8:00pm

Closure of the West Bank for the Jewish New Year placed further restrictions on the movement of Palestinians marking the end of Ramadan on Tuesday. Despite pledges to ease travel restrictions, Israel has increased the number of roadblocks and checkpoints over the last six months in the occupied West Bank, according to a United Nations report made public this week. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says the Israeli army erected 19 new "obstacles" since April, raising the total to 630, including 93 checkpoints controlled by soldiers.

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Book ban ends rare Arab-Israeli cultural exchange
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Joseph Nasr - September 30, 2008 - 8:00pm

For 15 years Israeli Saleh Abbasi has traded books between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbours, fostering a rare cultural link. But in August Israeli authorities suddenly refused to renew his trading licence because he was trading with "enemy" states Lebanon and Syria, frustrating both Abbasi's business and the Arab and Israeli readers he has helped interest in each other's literary traditions. "How can the People of the Book be against books?" Abbasi asked, evoking the Jewish Bible as the first monotheistic holy text. "Books are a bridge to peace between cultures."

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Israel army buys self-destruct cluster bombs: radio
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP)
September 29, 2008 - 8:00pm

The Israeli army is equipping itself with self-destruct cluster bombs in order to lower the number of civilian victims of this type of weapon, used in the 2006 war in Lebanon, military radio said. The army has reduced its purchases of US made cluster bombs, instead buying Israel-made M-85 cluster bombs, which contain a mechanism to destroy themselves if they fail to explode immediately on impact, according to the report. Cluster munitions spread bomblets over a wide area from a single container.

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