NEWS: The Emir of Qatar visits Gaza. The Gaza trip is seen as the latest part in Qatar's efforts to develop more regional influence. Fatah officials say they were not invited to meet him. An Israeli soldier is wounded by a bomb on Israel-Gaza border. Pres. Obama and GOP candidate Romney both pledge support for Israel in their final debate. Former Pres. Carter questions whether Israel is interested in a two-state solution, as a new survey indicates most Jewish Israelis would support an apartheid regime in their country. The Israeli Housing Ministry is marketing at least 700 new settlement housing units in the occupied West Bank.UNRWA staff go on strike to protest cuts in services. An Israeli former military lawyer says international opinion on Israel's actions in the occupied territories undermines its self-defense. Israel's Arab citizens are struggling to attend universities. The JGA profiles maverick Gaza journalist Asmaa al-Ghoul. Israel is forbidding the unification of married Palestinian couples between Gaza and the West Bank. Israel is also refusing to allow Gaza students with US-funded scholarships to study in the West Bank. COMMENTARY: Gideon Levy says Israel is an openly, shamelessly apartheid state. Akiva Eldar looks at a new book on Israel's policies towards Lebanon. Anshel Pfeffer says PM Netanyahu is still counting on a Romney victory next week. Harriet Sherwood says intensifying Israeli settlement activity is an indicator of the consequences of Obama's failure to secure a peace agreement. Asharq Al-Awsat interviews a prominent Salafist-Jihadist based in Gaza. Yigal Sarna reviews the film “5 Broken Cameras,” and Marshall Yarbrough reviews “'Sons and Others.” Ibrahim Abu-Ta'a says, whoever wins, the next American president must confront the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hanan Ashrawi says it's absurd to expect Palestinians to ask Israel's permission when applying for international recognition.

Israel's grand illusion on Palestinian UN recognition
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Hanan Ashrawi - (Opinion) October 23, 2012 - 12:00am

The artful magician relies on basic tricks in order to perform his illusions. He talks to distract the audience, giving irrelevant details to keep their minds occupied. He uses his skills to draw their attention to a certain place. Then, while all eyes are focused in one direction, he subtly and deftly carries out his deception, making them believe in a distorted reality; something their common sense tells them cannot be, but that their minds are inclined to accept.

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Obama and Romney need to confront, solve Israeli-Palestinian divisions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Hill
by Ibrahim Abu Ta'a - (Blog) October 22, 2012 - 12:00am

I was born and raised in Jerusalem. Most of my work colleagues are Jewish, and despite the growing tension between Jews and Palestinians in Israel, years of working together have made us quite close. I speak Hebrew fluently, as well as my native Arabic, and I have always engaged my Jewish acquaintances with the same openness and respect I would give to anyone else.

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Sons and Others
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Cinespect
by Marshall Yarbrough - (Film Review) October 23, 2012 - 12:00am

The French title of “The Other Son,” “Le fils de l’autre,” translates literally as “the son of the other.” The original title better expresses director Lorraine Lévy’s intentions in this, her third feature. Set in Israel, the film takes as its subject two eighteen-year-old boys, one Israeli, one Palestinian, brought together by strange circumstances and forced to confront their differences.

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Israeli Land Grab Is Depicted In a Disturbing Documentary
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Yedioth Ahronoth
by Yigal Sarna - (Film Review) October 23, 2012 - 12:00am

In this pre-election period, I found myself wondering, in a dark little theater in Tel Aviv, about the accuracy of a statement I recently read by a Polish [sic] monk named Thomas Merton. Merton wrote than when a “myth becomes a daydream, it is judged. … To cling to it when it has lost its creative function is to condemn oneself to mental illness.” I watched the new documentary film “5 Broken Cameras,” and I felt disturbed, like a father watching a recording of police interrogating his son, who harmed a young girl.

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Salafis determined to establish Islamic Emirate in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Kifah Zaboun - (Editorial) October 23, 2012 - 12:00am

Ramallah, Asharq Al-Awsat - A prominent Salafi jihadist based in the Gaza Strip has stressed that his group’s efforts of establishing an Islamic Emirate in the Gaza Strip continues despite the severe blows handed to them at the hands of Israel and the Hamas Movement. "We always are planning to establish God's Sharia on earth. This is the duty of every Muslim. Our project, God willing, exists, and the day will come when the mujahidin will fulfil their project." Abu Abdul-Muhajir told Asharq Al-Awsat.

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Israel's cranes reprove Barack Obama's failure to pursue two-state solution
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - (Opinion) October 21, 2012 - 12:00am

At the eastern tip of the Israeli settlement of Ariel, cranes and earth-movers are at work on the college campus, which stretches across a hill overlooking the villages and valleys of the West Bank. Eleven miles from the internationally recognised Green Line separating Israel from the Palestinian Territories, construction is under way of buildings to accommodate a projected growth from 13,000 to 20,000 students over the next 10 years.

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Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu bets on Mitt Romney winning US presidency
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Anshel Pfeffer - (Opinion) October 22, 2012 - 12:00am

The third presidential debate tonight focusing on America's foreign policy will probably not have much impact on the race, two weeks before election day – and with an electorate much more concerned about economic prospects close to home than when exactly did Barack Obama acknowledge that the Benghazi 9/11 attack was an act of terror rather than a spontaneous reaction to the anti-Islam video.

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How Israel dug its own grave in Lebanon
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Editorial) October 23, 2012 - 12:00am

A former high-ranking intelligence officer in Beirut has written a book documenting four decades of bloody misdeeds and shameful acts perpetrated by the Israel Defense Forces. Among them, he accuses the Defense Ministry of abandoning members of the South Lebanon Army who came to live in Israel following the withdrawal from Lebanon.

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Apartheid without shame or guilt
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) October 23, 2012 - 12:00am

As elections draw near, the season of public opinion surveys is upon us. But here is a survey that is more disturbing and significant in its revelations than those informing us whether Yair Lapid is taking off or Ehud Barak is crashing in the polls. This one lays bare an image of Israeli society, and the picture is a very, very sick one. Now it is not just critics at home and abroad, but Israelis themselves who are openly, shamelessly, and guiltlessly defining themselves as nationalistic racists.

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