August 5th

Hamas-Fatah talks: Is Palestinian unity an illusion?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Jon Donnison - August 5, 2011 - 12:00am

Palestinian political leaders seemed to be listening. Within weeks, somewhat out of the blue, a reconciliation deal was announced. Orchestrated by the new leadership in Egypt, it was meant to end four years of bitter and sometimes violent division between the two main Palestinian factions. Three months on, Abu Yassin is angry: "Nothing has changed. "We're really disappointed. This deal was just signatures on paper. We wanted real change on the ground."

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'IDF troops shot at journalists covering W. Bank protest'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Ben Hartman - August 5, 2011 - 12:00am

An American-Israeli photojournalist on Thursday lodged a complaint with the IDF Spokesman’s Office, the Government Press Office and the Foreign Press Association, alleging that IDF soldiers intentionally fired anti-riot projectiles at him and a fellow journalist while they were covering a protest in the West Bank village of Nabi Salih last Friday.

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Palestinian Authority orders forces to prevent violence after September UN vote
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff - August 5, 2011 - 12:00am

The Palestinian Authority has ordered its security forces to prevent demonstrations planned for September from escalating into violent confrontations with Israel, especially in potential friction points like the roadblocks and settlements. Senior Palestinian Authority figures issued the orders to the Palestinian security forces in recent weeks out of concern that there may be violent clashes between thousands of Palestinian demonstrators and Israel Defense Forces at the end of September, following a vote at the United Nations General Assembly for recognition of a Palestinian state.

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News Analysis: Palestinians insist on approaching UN for establishing state
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by Emad Drimly, Osama Radi - August 5, 2011 - 12:00am

RAMALLAH, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- Over the past few months, the Palestinian leadership has been insisting that its only choice is to approach the United Nations in September to demand a full membership. Fifty days ahead of the annual UN General Assembly meetings in New York, observers said Palestinians will not retreat from applying to the UN. The Palestinians announced on Thursday that they had finalized the preparations for approaching the UN through out coordination with Arab countries. ARAB COUNTRIES' SUPPORT

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Israel chides Honduran envoy over support for Palestinian state
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
August 4, 2011 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli Foreign Ministry earlier this week summoned Honduran ambassador Jose Isaias Barahona, in order to clarify his country's declared intention to support recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September. The ministry's Deputy Director for Central and South American and the Caribbean, Dorit Shavit, met with Barahona on Sunday, according to a statement sent to Xinhua on Thursday.

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Israeli air strikes injure 5 in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 5, 2011 - 12:00am

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli military air strikes injured five people across the Gaza Strip overnight on Thursday. Medics told Ma'an that three people were seriously injured in an air strike on the northern city of Beit Lahiya. An Israeli army spokeswoman said the military targeted the launch site of a rocket in northern Gaza around 10.00 p.m. Thursday. Shortly after, air strikes hit central and southern Gaza, and witnesses told Ma'an that two Palestinians from the Al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City had been injured.

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In Israel, raft of new laws shows rise of the right
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - August 4, 2011 - 12:00am

Critics say Israel is forsaking its democratic ideals with a right-wing agenda. Avishai Amir, a former spokesman in the left-wing Labor government of the 1990s, begs to differ. Take the recent nakba law, for example, which bans public funding for groups that mark Israel's independence day as Palestinians do: by declaring the creation of the Jewish state to be a nakba, Arabic for "catastrophe."

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ISRAEL: Approval of 900 new homes in East Jerusalem draws ire
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - August 4, 2011 - 12:00am

Israel's Interior Ministry gave the final green light Thursday to the construction of more than 900 new homes in a Jewish development built on land seized during the 1967 Mideast war. Palestinians and anti-settlement groups said the Har Homa expansion, which has been working its way through Israeli regulatory agencies since last year, will occupy one of the last remaining undeveloped hillsides in the area and effectively cut off direct access between Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

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August 4th

NEWS: A pending Knesset bill would drop the word “democratic” from Israel self-definition and eliminate Arabic as an official language. A gruesome “honor killing” shocks Palestinians and prompts harsher penalties. New US ambassador Dan Shapiro says Pres. Obama hopes to visit Israel soon. Analysts say new settlement construction would do nothing to offset Israel's cost-of-living crisis. An Israeli parliamentary report says Palestinian violence in September is “unlikely,” but its security forces are preparing for many contingencies. The Arab League says it's finalizing plans for a UN statehood initiative, and Palestinians say their "train is headed towards New York." Gazans show no sympathy for ex-president Mubarak, now on trial in Egypt. COMMENTARY: Nicholas Kristof says the US needs a more balanced policy towards Israel and the Palestinians. Dimi Reider and Aziz Abu Sarah say the cost of living crisis in Israel is strongly linked to the occupation. Michael Jansen says Israel's economic crisis is a classic guns versus butter dilemma. Ian Bremmer says Palestinian statehood is coming and Israel and the United States will find themselves isolated. Americans for Peace Now issues “principles” for Palestinian international recognition and the UN.

Egyptians unite behind Mubarak’s trail
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Joseph Mayton - August 4, 2011 - 12:00am

Cheers went up at the local café as the crowd applauded and watched on television former President Hosni Mubarak being wheeled into his courtroom cage, locked up like a dog. This trial of the man who ruled Egypt for nearly three decades was going to be as popular as a World Cup football final, with people tuning into to their radios or crowding around televisions as the streets wind down to a standstill.

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