What’s the Israel-Azerbaijan connection? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from McClatchy News by Sheera Frenkel - April 26, 2012 - 12:00am The burgeoning relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan is raising eyebrows throughout the Middle East, not least of all because Azerbaijan is Iran’s neighbor to the north and shares close cultural and demographic ties with Iran. » Read more

The European Union and the peace process ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Uri Savir - (Opinion) April 26, 2012 - 12:00am Who would have believed only 65 years ago that the main international support in last week’s French presidential election President Nicolas Sarkozy – Charles de Gaulle’s successor – would be the chancellor of Germany? For centuries war and antagonism characterized Franco-German relationships, coming to a climax with the Nazi occupation of Paris. And yet there is probably not a single Frenchman or German who believes that war between these former foes is realistic in the foreseeable or distant future. » Read more

Mansour: Settlements prove Israel rejects 1967 borders ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency April 27, 2012 - 12:00am BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The PLO ambassador at the United Nations on Wednesday condemned Israeli settlement activity in a series of letters to senior UN officials. "There have been confirmations by the UN Security Council and General Assembly, Human Rights Council and the Social and Economic Council on the illegality of all settlement activity in a number of resolutions which are still available, and we are still calling on Israel to respect and implement the resolutions," Mansour said. » Read more

Jewish refugee rights is an unsolved human rights issue ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Lyn Julius - (Opinion) April 27, 2012 - 12:00am Refael Bigio remembers the moment in 1962 that the regime of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser seized his family's property. Police had cordoned off the Bigio bottling plant at 14 Aswan Street in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis. A policeman barked at Bigio and his father: "Hand over the keys!" » Read more

Israel asks to defer demolition of settler homes ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press April 27, 2012 - 12:00am JERUSALEM — The Israeli government has asked the nation's Supreme Court to defer next week's deadline for demolishing an unauthorized West Bank settlement outpost. The request Friday said the government needs 90 more days to consider a court order to destroy the 30 apartments there. It is not clear whether the court will agree. Critics of the proposed delay accuse the government of trying to flout the rule of law. The state previously agreed to destroy the apartments in the Ulpana outpost because they were erected on privately owned Palestinian land. » Read more

Being an occupier has a destructive effect on Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star by Ben Lynfield - (Opinion) April 27, 2012 - 12:00am With international attention distracted by Iran and Syria, Israel’s fateful entanglement in the West Bank hardly gets a mention in the news these days. » Read more

The 'rehabilitated' IDF ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Yossi Sarid - (Opinion) April 27, 2012 - 12:00am I won a bet recently over Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner. My friend said to me, "That lieutenant colonel is going to be booted from here to kingdom come." And I said, "He'll be suspended, so that he can stay on." I won. Because nowadays, the chief of the General Staff doesn't run the Israel Defense Forces; it's run by the generals of Judea and Samaria - its activists and rabbis - and Eisner is one of their favorite sons. » Read more

Defense Minister Adds to Israel’s Recent Mix of Messages on Iran ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Jodi Rudoren - April 26, 2012 - 12:00am JERUSALEM — One day after Israeli newspapers reported that the nation’s top general had said economic and diplomatic pressures against Iran were beginning to succeed, his superior, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, said Thursday that the chances “appear low” that the Iranian government would bow to international pressure and halt its nuclear program. » Read more

Israeli official larceny ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News (Editorial) April 27, 2012 - 12:00am Israel's timing was predicable. With the world’s gaze focused on the horrors in Syria and the Obama administration increasingly diverted by November’s presidential election, it chose this week to declare “legal” three fortified West Bank settlements which had been originally been erected by fanatical Zionists in contravention of their country’s own laws. » Read more

Palestinian Government Cracks down on Critics ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press April 27, 2012 - 12:00am JERUSALEM — The government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has moved to silence critics, raising new concerns about freedom of expression in the West Bank. Abbas' communications minister, Mashour Abu Daqa, said late Thursday that the attorney general's office ordered several websites shut down over the past six months. The sites belong to an Abbas rival, former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan. » Read more