June 27th

Suspect dies in custody in Palestinian jail
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
June 27, 2011 - 12:00am

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A Palestinian human rights group is demanding an inquiry into the death of a Gaza man in Hamas police custody. The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights says it fears Ibrahim Aaraj might have been tortured while in custody at the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Center staff said Monday that they saw a fracture on the top of his head and bruises on his forehead, face, back and limbs.

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Palestinians seek support for UN recognition
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Mohammed Daraghmeh - June 27, 2011 - 12:00am

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian delegations will make the rounds of nearly a dozen countries to try to drum up more support for their bid to have the United Nations recognize a Palestinian state, senior officials said Monday. Palestinian officials will visit Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries that have not yet endorsed the Palestinian plan for recognition, said Hana Amireh, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's decision-making Executive Committee.

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Buying Into Palestinian Statehood
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Yossi Alpher, Colette Avital, Shlomo Gazit, Mark Heller - (Opinion) June 24, 2011 - 12:00am

TEL AVIV — Instead of wasting time and energy trying to revive a moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the United States and European Union should take another look at the Palestinian initiative to seek U.N. recognition in September. What is described in some quarters as a recipe for new strife and confrontation can actually be leveraged into a win-win situation for Israelis, Palestinians and the world.

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Israel moves West Bank barrier after 4-year delay
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Maayan Lubell - June 26, 2011 - 12:00am

BILIN, West Bank, June 26 (Reuters) - Israel began repositioning part of its contested barrier in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, four years after a court ruled it should be re-routed to give Palestinians greater access to farmland. Israeli tractors tore down a section of the barrier, a metal fence, as a clutch of journalists watched. A new concrete barrier has been erected some 600 meters from the old route near the Jewish settlement of Modiin Illit. The Israeli military tore down a watchtower overlooking Bilin on Wednesday and protesters rammed a bulldozer into the fence on Friday.

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Palestinians going ahead with statehood bid
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
June 27, 2011 - 12:00am

RAMALLAH (AFP) -- President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that with no renewal of peace talks on the horizon, the Palestinians would pursue their unilateral bid for recognition in September. "I say that if negotiations have failed we will go to the United Nations for membership," Abbas told a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization and his Fatah party. "Until now there have been no new incentives to return to negotiations," he said.

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Israel urged to speak directly to Arab world
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - June 26, 2011 - 12:00am

Few countries are as active in courting international opinion as Israel. An entire ministry is devoted to a kind of global PR called hasbara, the Hebrew word for "explaining." Israelis studiously track public opinion in the United States and Europe, and Israel's military has taken to using YouTube, Twitter and an army of bloggers to disseminate real-time updates around the world, sometimes in the middle of battle. But the public diplomacy campaign, which has largely focused on the West, has ignored the Arab world, which many in Israel have viewed as a lost cause.

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Ahead of U.N. Vote, Effort to Restart Mideast Talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - June 24, 2011 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — Intensive efforts are under way to stave off a Palestinian bid for United Nations membership in September, with diplomats trying to lure Israeli and Palestinian leaders back to negotiations on the basis of President Obama’s formula of a state based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps.

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Avoid Gaza Flotilla, Israel Warns Foreign Journalists
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - June 26, 2011 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — Israel threatened Sunday to bar for up to a decade any foreign journalist who boards a flotilla seeking to challenge an Israeli naval blockade of Gaza. Oren Helman, the director of the Government Press Office, sent a letter to registered foreign correspondents here asserting that the flotilla, scheduled to sail this week, was illegal and that participation in it, even as a reporter, was “liable to lead to participants being denied entry into the State of Israel for ten years, to the impoundment of their equipment and to additional sanctions.”

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June 24th

NEWS: Hamas refuses to prove that a captured Israeli soldier is still alive. PM Netanyahu has said Israel will retaliate with harsher conditions for Palestinian prisoners. Palestinians say Turkey has pledged to help their UN bid. PM Netanyahu reportedly tells US officials he accepts that negotiations should be based on the 1967 borders. Palestinians also say they’re willing to soften their positions to facilitate talks. The PA fines a truck driver for distributing settlement goods. Netanyahu’s son reportedly posts disparaging remarks about Arabs on Facebook. PM Fayyad participates in a protest against the separation barrier. The EU casts doubt on Palestinian chances that the UN in September. COMMENTARY: Yoel Marcus says Israelis and Palestinians are avoiding painful compromises like children avoiding the dentist. Jeremy Ben-Ami says Israel should welcome criticism from its friends. Yehuda Ben Meir joins calls for Netanyahu to change his coalition. Al-Hayat interviews Zbigniew Brzezinski. Marwan Al Kabalan says Arabs are starting to doubt Pres. Obama’s ability to broker peace. Ha’aretz interviews EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. Rana Baker says Israeli restrictions make Palestinians tourists in their own homes. Saleh Al-Naami says settlers continue to deploy violence against Palestinians with impunity. Mohsen Saleh says recent border incidents have put the right of return back on the agenda.

PA continues crackdown on settlements goods ban
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
June 23, 2011 - 12:00am

SALFIT (Ma’an) -- The Magistrates Court of Salfit issued a decision Thursday, fining a driver $2,820 for transporting settlement goods, and suspending the man's license for six months. The 40-year-old truck driver, from the village of Deir Al-Hatab in the Salfit district, was charged according to the 2010 law on the prohibition and control of settlement products, article 14/2/A 2010 and under the Criminal Procedure Code article 274/2 of 2001. Police said the man had been transporting a load of gauze rolls, they said the goods were confiscated and would be sold at auction.



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