In spite of the last-minute reprieve, funding disputes threaten Gaza's electricity supply. Israeli warplanes bomb southern Gaza. UNRWA issues another appeal for funding. Gaza journalists are caught up in the Hamas-Fatah rivalry. Pres. Abbas says he still waiting for US clarification on new talks. An Israeli man is stabbed in the occupied West Bank. Tensions flare between Israel's Defense Minister and military Chief of Staff. A.B. Yehoshua says peace with the Palestinians is Israel's best response to Iran. The PA says a new corruption scandal is an Israeli conspiracy. Matthew Levitt asks if Gaza is going the way of Somalia and Yemen. Jonathan Freedland says Palestinians should call PM Netanyahu's bluff. Gazan tunnelers dig ever deeper. Tony Karon says Israelis must feel a price for occupation. David Newman says there is ample room for a peace agreement land swap.

Abbas waiting for U.S. reply on peace talk offers
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
February 10, 2010 - 1:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas requested clarification from Washington over its offer to restart indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), a Palestinian newspaper said on Tuesday. The questions needed to be clarified include on what basis the U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell will stand in his mediation mission and when the talks will begin, Abbas told the Ramallah-based al-Ayyam daily. Once the PNA receives the reply, it will invite an Arab League committee to formulate the Arab response to the U.S. proposals, said Abbas.

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Gaza journalists caught up in Hamas-Fatah legitimacy argument
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by Fares Akram - February 10, 2010 - 1:00am

Raed Lafi, a Palestinian journalist, sometimes find himself using terms and expressions unwillingly when referring to feuding Palestinian governments in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. "We deal with terms that are unnecessarily legal," said Raed Lafi, a Gaza-based journalist working for several Arab newspapers, blaming the political split between Gaza and the West Bank "which has forced us" to abide by specific references.

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Israeli warplanes fire on southern Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 10, 2010 - 1:00am

The Israeli military confirmed reports from Gaza residents that warplanes struck targets in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning, causing damage the the already destroyed airport site in Khan Younis but no injuries. An Israeli military spokeswoman said strikes came in retaliation for projectiles launched into the western Negev in recent days. In a separate statement, the army also warned that it would "continue to operate firmly against anyone who uses terror against the State of Israel. Hamas is solely responsible for maintaining peace and quiet in the Gaza Strip."

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UNRWA appeals for more donations to maintain, improve services for Palestinian refugees
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
February 10, 2010 - 1:00am

United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Filippo Grandi warned on Tuesday of financial burdens the agency is facing, appealing for 100 million U.S. dollars to support the agency. In a press conference in Jordanian capital Amman, Grandi called for supporting the agency's budget as the current financial support the agency receives does not take into account the increasing number of Palestinian refugees.

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Power struggle could portend a cold, dark winter in Gaza Strip
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Maher Abukhater - February 10, 2010 - 1:00am

The Gaza Strip's beleaguered residents face worsening power outages, even as winter temperatures drop, because of a financial dispute between the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and Gaza's electricity distributor. The authority says it pays about $30 million a month to provide electricity to Gaza's 1.5 million people. But officials say the Gaza Electricity Distribution Co., which collects payments from Gaza customers, is sending back only about one-tenth of that amount from bill collections.

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Nothing sacred about the green line
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by David Newman - (Analysis) January 2, 2010 - 1:00am

Just when there seemed to be a consensus inside Israel concerning a two-state solution to the conflict, we seem to be in danger of losing it altogether. The growing number of settlement-related facts on the ground, the harder it is to make a clean territorial cut, evacuate hundreds of thousands of settlers and demarcate a border of ethnic and national separation. Drawing borders is a pre-requisite for implementation of a two-state solution. The two alternatives, a single bi-national state and continuation of occupation, do not require any form of territorial separation.

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Gaza Energy Crisis Averted - For Now
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Mel Frykberg - February 9, 2010 - 1:00am

"The emergency has been temporarily halted after the PA released urgent funds to finance two fuel tankers entering Gaza on Sunday," says Osama Dabou from Gaza’s Power Plant (GPP) authority. "We are expecting several other fuel tankers to enter Gaza shortly. But this is only an interim stop-gap and will only last a short while after which the situation will again reach a critical point," Dabou told IPS.

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The apartheid will end when Israelis have to face its cost
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Tony Karon - (Opinion) February 7, 2010 - 1:00am

The former US president Jimmy Carter set off a firestorm in 2006 when he said that Israel would have to choose between maintaining an apartheid occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians. That Mr Carter brokered Israel’s most important peace treaty with an Arab country was immaterial; he was branded an enemy of Israel, an anti-Semite and even a Holocaust-denier.

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Gaza's defiant tunnellers head deeper underground
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Robert Fisk - February 10, 2010 - 1:00am

They are the real resistance. They are the lung through which Gaza breathes. True, missiles must pass along their subterranean tracks, Qassam rockets, too, Kalashnikov ammunition, explosives. But by far the greatest burden of the tunnellers of Gaza is the very life-blood of this besieged little pseudo-Islamic statelet: fresh meat, oranges, chocolate, shirts, trousers, toys, cigarettes, wedding dresses, paper, entire motor-cars in four bits, car batteries, even plastic bottle tops.

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