December 14th

U.K. reportedly issues arrest warrant for Livni
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni on Monday canceled her participation in a Jewish function in London, after a warrant for her arrest was issued over part in last winter's Israel's Gaza offensive, Arab-language media have reported. Al-Quds Al-Arabi claimed that Scotland Yard advised the organizers of the Jewish National Fund conference in northwest London that the former foreign minister had canceled her scheduled address to the assembly over threats of a possible lawsuit by pro-Palestinian groups.

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Abbas urges Netanyahu to wrap up Shalit deal
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

President Mahmoud Abbas recently sent a message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking him to finalize a prisoner swap deal between Israel and the captors of soldier Gilad Shalit, the Hebrew-language daily Ma'ariv reported Sunday. The report says Abbas sent the message through a third party. The president reportedly asked Netanyahu to release Hamas' prisoners in addition to Fatah's Marwan Barghouthi and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's Ahmad Sa'adat.

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Palestinian reconciliation efforts at an impasse, Fatah says
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Hopes to restart Palestinian reconciliation efforts through signing Egypt’s proposal shrank again, as member of Fatah’s Central Committee Nabil Sha’ath on Monday alleged that Hamas had refused to sign the reconciliation document. “I contacted the Egyptian officials and reached the conclusion that efforts reached an impasse in light of Hamas' refusal to sign the Egyptian plan. Hamas’ top priority is the prisoner swap negotiations, and they will not take any other step before the deal is finalized,” Sha’ath told Ma’an during a telephone interview from Cairo.

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Israel settlement freeze shields dismantling of illegal outposts
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Israel’s settlement freeze is supposed to clamp down on new housing starts in the West Bank, but it’s also shielding illegally built outposts and settler houses from demolition. The enforcement of an order to evacuate outposts – a step demanded by the US to help restart peace talks with the Palestinians – has been put off for years. Palestinians and Israeli peace groups have been challenging the delay in Israel’s Supreme Court, which requested from Israel a timetable for the demolitions.

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West Bank Is Tense After Arson at Mosque
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Passions ran high on Sunday in this Palestinian village in the northern West Bank two days after arsonists, presumed by Palestinians and many Israelis to be Jewish extremists, set fire to the central mosque. A delegation of Jewish religious leaders and activists, including some from West Bank settlements, tried to reach the village to express their abhorrence of the attack. But the Israeli Army prevented the group from entering Yasuf for security reasons as enraged villagers proclaimed that the visitors would not be welcome.

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December 11th

Egypt constructs huge Gaza wall
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Ben Lynfield - December 11, 2009 - 1:00am

Egypt has reportedly begun building an underground iron wall along its border with the Gaza Strip in a major upgrading of its efforts to end smuggling through tunnels. Egyptian security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the wall project is under way. Local residents reported Egyptian clearing work was in progress 90 metres from the border over the last three weeks.

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The New York Times blog investigates how Israel is attempting to use YouTube for propaganda purposes. A commentary in the Christian Science Monitor says Pres. Obama 's Nobel Prize does not sit well with Arabs or Palestinians because of the impasse in peace talks. Extremist West Bank settlers allegedly set fire to a mosque. Palestinian Christians call the occupation a "sin." An Israeli Cabinet minister predicts a settler population could grow by as much as 10,000 in the coming year. Israeli negotiations with the Vatican fail to change church policies. The EU calls the Palestinian police the cornerstone of a future state. The Jerusalem Post argues the US is scaling back Middle East diplomacy because of disappointment on peace talks. In the context of statehood, the PA is reportedly planning to resurrect the Palestinian pound. Reports continue that Egypt is building a wall along and underneath its border with Gaza, but the Egyptian government strongly denies this, and an editorial in the National says Israel and not Egypt is responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel's ambassador to the US calls J Street a "unique problem."

Egypt denies building 'Gaza wall'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Jazeera English
December 10, 2009 - 1:00am

Egypt has denied it is constructing an underground steel barrier along its strip with the Gaza border in an attempt to seal off smuggling tunnels built by Palestinians. Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, reported that Egypt was installing a metal wall up to 30 metres deep along the strip used by Palestinians to break the Israeli blockade of the territory. The paper reported that the wall would be nearly 10km long as "impossible to cut or melt".

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Egypt’s wall is not the cause of Gaza’s woes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) December 10, 2009 - 1:00am

The news is sure to inflame the Arab world: Egypt is building, with US help, a new wall to prevent Gazans from tunnelling into the country. This development becomes all the more contentious since it comes nearly one year after the devastating Israeli assault on the Palestinian territory. But cooler heads must prevail. Any backlash against Egyptian authorities would be undeserved. It is Israel’s blockade, not Egypt’s wall that is starving the Palestinians.

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In Shift, Oren Calls J Street ‘A Unique Problem’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Josh Nathan-Kazis - December 9, 2009 - 1:00am

Breaking with his previous restraint, Israel’s ambassador to the United States delivered an unprecedented blast against J Street, the new dovish Israel lobby that has made waves in Washington and throughout the Jewish community. Addressing a breakfast session at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s biennial convention December 7, Ambassador Michael Oren described J Street as “a unique problem in that it not only opposes one policy of one Israeli government, it opposes all policies of all Israeli governments. It’s significantly out of the mainstream.”

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