January 20th

Israel withholding NGO employees' work permits
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - January 20, 2010 - 1:00am

The Interior Ministry has stopped granting work permits to foreign nationals working in most international nongovernmental organizations operating in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, Haaretz has learned. In an apparent overhaul of regulations that have been in place since 1967, the ministry is now granting the NGO employees tourist visas only, which bar them from working.

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PA, Mitchell to push for settlement halt in East Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
January 20, 2010 - 1:00am

Bethlehem – Ma’an/Agencies – The Palestinian Authority is urging Israel to approve a complete standstill on settlement construction in occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli media reported on Wednesday. The halt would be for a period of between three to six months and will not be approved by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post. "This is not going to happen; it goes against everything Netanyahu says and believes in," a source in the prime minister's office told the daily.

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Gaza war: Palestinians battle bitterly over Palestinian forces' conduct
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Ilene Prusher - January 19, 2010 - 1:00am

On this day last year, a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel took effect after three brutal weeks of fighting that left close to 1,500 people dead. And while today, the guns are largely quiet, the truth of what happened in that devastating war is still being bitterly fought over – not between Palestinians and Israelis, but among Palestinians themselves.

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Issues Stand Before Israel in Joining Elite Group
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - January 19, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM — Israel, which has catapulted in the past two decades from a minor state-dominated economy to a market-driven technology hothouse, is in the final stages of accession to the exclusive club of advanced countries, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But its secretive weapons trade, patent-bending drug industry and occupation of Arab lands are raising last-minute questions.

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January 19th

Special Envoy Mitchell arrives in the Middle East amid further speculation about the Obama administration's latest peace initiative. Pres. Abbas urges the US to pursue an "endgame" to the conflict. The EU pledges €160 million to the PA. A Hamas leader admits the organization receives financial support from Iran. Palestinians host their first diplomatic meeting in Jerusalem in many years. A Ha'aretz commentary says it's time for the US to start twisting arms on peace, and another says Israel's compassion for Haiti can't hide its cruelty towards Gaza. Jordanian sources claim Iran ordered the failed attack on the Israeli diplomats in Jordan. Israeli settlers are arrested in a West Bank mosque arson attack investigation. Palestinian human rights groups call for internal Palestinian investigations into abuses during the Gaza war. Israel is failing to allow an access road to the first Palestinian planned city in the occupied West Bank. Concern grows about spitting incidents against Christians by Jewish extremists in Jerusalem. Israel continues to target Palestinian nonviolent protesters. Palestinians counter Birthright Israel with Birthright Unplugged. Concern grows about the prospects for another war in Gaza.

Bereft and Healing, a Father Returns Home to Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Jeffay - January 13, 2010 - 1:00am

“The blood of my daughters was a price that saved others’ lives,” said Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. One year later, the Gaza physician is trying to make sense of the deaths of his children, killed by Israeli missiles during Israel’s military campaign. Related Articles Guileless in Gaza What Happens to Gaza When the Fighting Stops? Timeline: The Gaza Strip, From Disengagement to Operation Cast Lead

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Spitting on Christians in Jerusalem draws rabbinic rebuke
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from
by Ben Harris - January 17, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- From his ceramics gallery along Armenian Patriarchate Road, Garo Sandrouni has a sweeping view of one of the Old City of Jerusalem's longest thoroughfares, stretching from Jaffa Gate deep into the Jewish Quarter. Jewish worshipers heading to and from the Western Wall jostle for space along the narrow passage with Armenian priests and seminarians, and Sandrouni says about once a week he finds himself breaking up fights between them.

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Israel targets Palestinian anti-wall activists
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Omar Karmi - January 18, 2010 - 1:00am

Jamal Juma’ could not help but laugh at one of the accusations he said he had been threatened with while in Israeli detention. “They said they would indict me for links to Hizbollah. They didn’t like it when I started laughing,” Mr Juma’, a lifelong communist, said on Sunday, five days after his release.

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How Israel put the brakes on another Palestinian dream
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
January 16, 2010 - 1:00am

The West Bank scene is all too familiar: yellow cranes lifting boulders, bulldozers scooping up soil, drills transforming a hillside set in a biblical landscape of rolling olive groves. But this is not another Jewish settlement under construction. Small Palestinian flags wave from the bulldozers, a hint that this is a nationally significant project, the start of the first planned city in modern Palestinian history.

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So who is Israel’s one true friend? Clue: it isn’t the US
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Tony Karon - (Opinion) January 16, 2010 - 1:00am

Friends don’t let friends drive drunk, an old American slogan says. By that measure the US has hardly been a real friend to Israel over the past decade. It has enabled a pattern of Israeli behaviour so reckless as to endanger Israel’s prospects of ever achieving peaceful coexistence with the states and peoples around it. An aggressive drunk often reserves his most toxic invective for those of his friends who tell him the truth: that his behaviour is intolerable, is dangerous to himself and others, and can’t be allowed to continue.

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