March 1st

Encountering Peace: Learning from J Street ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Gershon Baskin - (Editorial) February 28, 2011 - 1:00am I am writing from Washington DC, where I’m attending the second annual conference of J Street, together with more than 2,000 American Jews from all walks of life, four MKs from Kadima and one from Labor. There are a number of other Israelis representing various peace and human-rights organizations. » Read more

What if Israeli forces treated West Bank settlers like Arabs? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Bradley Burston - February 28, 2011 - 1:00am Around here, you ignore omens only at your peril. The settlement movement knows how the omens have been running for it today. All black. All unexpected. Imagine a sunny day in winter, on which someone brilliant, compassionate, articulate, truly peace-minded, and actually popular, announces candidacy for the head of - of all things - Israel's Labor Party. Unheard of. Absurd. But true. The name is Shelly Yachimovich. » Read more

Swedish FM, in rare move, to spend night in Nablus ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Herb Keinon - March 1, 2011 - 1:00am Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt arrived in Israel Monday for a four day visit that includes a couple out of the ordinary agenda items: sleeping overnight in Nablus, and touring Israel's northern border. Bildt, considered among the most critical foreign ministers of Israeli policy inside the EU, has not been in the country for some two years, having canceled a visit here in the Fall of 2009 because of Israeli anger over his refusal to condemn an article in the Aftonbladet newspaper accusing Israel of killing Palestinians and harvesting their organs. » Read more

Settlers attack West Bank villages following outpost demolitions ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press March 1, 2011 - 1:00am Israeli settlers damaged houses and cars in a Palestinian village in the West Bank on Tuesday, police and witnesses said, in an apparent show of anger over the Israeli demolition of homes in an unauthorized settler outpost. Police say settlers are suspected of smashing windows of seven Palestinian cars and throwing a fire bomb at a Palestinian house. » Read more

Hamas fights UN's 'poisonous' Holocaust lessons in Gazan schools ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian by Harriet Sherwood - (Editorial) February 28, 2011 - 1:00am Hamas has vowed to stop the United Nations teaching children in Gaza about the Holocaust, saying it will poison their minds. The history of the Holocaust is planned to be included as part of a human rights curriculum in schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency, which is responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees. More than 200,000 children attend UNRWA schools in Gaza. Hamas, the Islamist organisation that runs Gaza, has said it will do all it can to stop the teaching of Holocaust studies. » Read more

Hamas accuses Israel of escalation as fragile ceasefire on edge of collapse ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua by Saud Abu Ramadan, Emad Drimly - February 28, 2011 - 1:00am The deposed government of the Islamic Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, on Monday accused Israel of escalating violence against the Palestinians in the coastal enclave as an undeclared fragile ceasefire between military factions and Israel is about to collapse. Taher al-Nouno, spokesman for the Hamas government, told Xinhua that the current Israeli military escalation on the Gaza Strip "is part of the Zionist enemy's nature, where it expresses the internal crisis that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is passing through and the failure of the peace process." » Read more

Principles at the foundation of a Palestinian state ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National (Opinion) March 1, 2011 - 1:00am The West Bank has had an important anchor as a wave of protests and leaks has washed over the region: the Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad's principled and pragmatic approach to state-building. Memos leaked from the Palestinian Authority's negotiations with the Israelis forced top-ranking officials in the West Bank to resign. Other leaders were caught flat-footed as protests reached cities in the West Bank. So much has changed in recent months - not, however, Mr Fayyad's plans for Palestinian statehood, nor their merits. » Read more

Salaam Fayyad offers 'pragmatic' olive branch to Hamas ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Hugh Naylor - March 1, 2011 - 1:00am If nothing else, Salaam Fayyad is reasonable, a trait that befits a man who is a trained economist and has spent more of his life in academia than politics. Which is why after more than four years of bitter infighting between Hamas and Fatah, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority last month invited the Gaza Strip's Islamist rulers to join a national unity government. » Read more

Abbas: International consensus against settlement building ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua March 1, 2011 - 1:00am Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday said there is an international consensus against construction of settlement, when 14 countries in the Security Council voted against it. Abbas told reporters as he met with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt in Ramallah that the 14 countries representing the international community in the Security Council condemned settlements and called for halting it. » Read more

Guest post: Salam Fayyad's Facebook outreach ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy by Erica Silverman - February 28, 2011 - 1:00am With Internet-organized protest movements sweeping the Arab world, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is trying his hand at social networking by posting a request on his Facebook page aimed at young Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, asking for suggestions as to who should fill the seats of the new cabinet that he must form in less than six weeks. "We appreciate the role of the youth and their participation in making this decision, they play a major role in our march toward freedom," said Fayyad. » Read more