EU's Ashton to Haaretz: UN vote on Palestinian state not a done deal ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Akiva Eldar - June 23, 2011 - 12:00am The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, says she is not sure that there will be a vote in the United Nations in September on recognition of a Palestinian state and that the wording of the resolution is still uncertain. "It will depend very much on what the resolution says as to how the international community in general and the EU in particular, votes," Ashton told Haaretz in an interview this week in her office in the EU headquarters in Brussels. » Read more

Saudis give $70m for Palestinian housing in Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman June 22, 2011 - 12:00am A U.N. agency aiding Palestinian refugees said Wednesday that Saudi Arabia is contributing $70 million for new housing units in the Gaza Strip. Israel has authorized construction of the 1,200 new homes and 18 badly needed schools in Gaza, in what would be one of the largest housing projects in the seaside territory in years. Israel, which controls the cargo crossings into Gaza, has largely banned the entry of construction materials into the coastal strip since Hamas militants seized control in 2007. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. » Read more

How to stop Israeli soccer racism ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Larry Derfner - (Opinion) June 23, 2011 - 12:00am Here’s a suggestion on how to stop racism at Israeli soccer games – the chanting of “death to the Arabs,” the hooting of monkey sounds at black players, all that stuff: Film it and show it to the world. » Read more

ICRC demands Hamas provide proof Shalit is alive ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Alertnet June 23, 2011 - 12:00am The International Red Cross called on Hamas on Thursday to provide proof that Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is still alive nearly five years after his capture by Palestinian militants. In an unusual public appeal, the independent aid agency said Shalit's family had a right under international humanitarian law to be in contact with their 24-year-old son, held incommunicado since his capture on June 25, 2006. » Read more

Jordan Valley families left homeless ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency (Analysis) June 23, 2011 - 12:00am "The big soldier wouldn’t speak to me. He just said ‘This is my job, sit down and shut up’," the newly homeless Ralia Darraghmeh, a diabetes sufferer in her sixties said of the one of the crew who had come to demolish her home Tuesday morning. She was sitting alone, crying in Khirbet Yarza, a tiny Bedouin hamlet, as her tin home was taken down by order of Israel's Civil Administration, which governs planning and permit issuing in the 60 percent of the West Bank categorized as Area C under the 1993 Oslo Accords. » Read more

Jordan remains stabilizing factor, Israel committed to helping monarchy survive ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Asaf Romirowsky - (Opinion) June 23, 2011 - 12:00am President John F. Kennedy once said that those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable. As a case in point, the so-called “Arab Spring” in the Middle East has now spread to the traditionally stable country of Jordan, a historical ally of the United States and Israel. » Read more

Israel surveys support for Palestinian state ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency June 23, 2011 - 12:00am Israel's foreign ministry estimates under two-thirds of UN member states will recognize a Palestinian state declared in September, and is launching a campaign to keep the number down, Israel Radio reported Thursday. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman instructed his department to survey the 192 countries in the United Nations, and send Israeli parliamentarians to nations who are yet undecided, the broadcast noted. The study said 118 nations would support the bid. » Read more

Did a Jerusalem court really sentence a dog to death by stoning? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Eoin O'Carroll - (Analysis) June 21, 2011 - 12:00am Have you heard the one about the dog who walked into a rabbinical court? Here's how the BBC reported it: A pooch made its way into a beth din in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim. One of the judges, believing the dog to be the reincarnation of a now-deceased lawyer whom the court had cursed some two decades earlier, sentenced the dog to death by stoning, and ordered that the sentence be carried out by children. The dog escaped before the sentence could be carried out. Dog-lovers have filed a complaint against the court. » Read more

The historical truth behind the Israeli-Palestinian narratives ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Dmitry Shumsky - (Opinion) June 23, 2011 - 12:00am In his article "Truth, not narrative," (June 17 ), Prof. Shlomo Avineri calls to separate nationalist narratives from historical truth when presenting the events of the Nakba (the Palestinian "catastrophe" that occurred when Israel was founded ). He says that on the one hand, there is the Israeli-Zionist narrative regarding the Jewish people's connection to its historic homeland and the Jews' miserable situation, while on the other hand, there is the Palestinian narrative, which regards the Jews solely as a religious group and Zionism as an imperialist phenomenon. » Read more

Artists Investigate Identity and Boundaries in Extraterritorial Waters ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Alice Pfeiffer - June 22, 2011 - 12:00am The legal term “ex-territory” historically refers to being outside the physical borders of a country and beyond its laws. Today, a project by two Israeli artists has found life in extraterritorial waters off Israel using a floating gallery and conference space as a forum for questions of boundaries and identity. The project was conceived in 2009, when two artists in Tel Aviv — Maayan Amir, 33, and Ruti Sela, 36 — were looking for a neutral space to screen a compilation of films by various artists in the Middle East. » Read more