April 20th

Israeli Official: Rockets Fired Toward Israel Were Smuggled From Libya after Gadhafi’s Fall
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
April 20, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — An Israeli defense official says rockets fired from Egypt toward Israel this month were smuggled from Libya. Israel says at least two rockets were launched from Egypt’s Sinai desert at the Israeli resort town of Eilat. No one was hurt. Egypt denies the rockets were fired from its territory. Libya has become an illicit source of weapons since the fall of dictator Moammar Gadhafi last year.

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Easter in Ramallah
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from International Herald Tribune
by Rajah Shehadeh - (Blog) April 19, 2012 - 12:00am

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Almost every year for over one hundred years on the Saturday before Orthodox Easter, the main street in Ramallah has been overtaken by marching boy scouts and girl scouts banging drums and blowing trumpets before tens of thousands of onlookers. It isn’t much of a parade. The music is as loud and out of tune as it is enthusiastic. Yet I try never to miss Sabt el Nour and the rowdy procession celebrating the miraculous light that beamed from Christ’s tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem the day before his resurrection.

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Mahmoud Abbas’s unhappy anniversary
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Jackson Diehl - (Opinion) April 19, 2012 - 12:00am

It was a year ago this month that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas turned his back on the U.S.-sponsored “peace process” with Israel and embarked on a radically different strategy for achieving Palestinian statehood. It’s time for a reckoning. Abbas’s step one was the surprise signing of an agreement in Cairo with the Islamic Hamas movement, ruler of the Gaza Strip, that promised to end the rift between Hamas and Abbas’s secular Fatah movement. A joint government was promised that would stage parliamentary and presidential elections within a year — i.e., by now.

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Police: Israeli Wounded in Stabbing Attack by Arab
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
April 19, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — Police say an Israeli has been stabbed in an attack by an Arab in Jerusalem. The ultra-Orthodox Jewish man was seriously wounded and was taken to a hospital. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says two suspects were arrested following the incident Thursday. It took place near a Jewish prayer site in a predominantly Arab area. The attack is the latest in a series of politically-motivated stabbings in Jerusalem. Last month, an Israeli soldier was seriously wounded in a stabbing attack on Jerusalem's light rail line.

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Egypt’s Brotherhood Blasts Mufti’s Jerusalem Visit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
April 19, 2012 - 12:00am

CAIRO — Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday denounced a rare visit to Jerusalem by the nation's top Islamic theologian that broke with decades of opposition to traveling to areas under Israeli control. Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa replied that his two-hour visit on Wednesday was a show of solidarity with the Palestinians' claim to Israeli-held east Jerusalem.

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Hamas Wouldn’t Honor a Treaty, Top Leader Says
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Larry Cohler-Esses - (Interview) April 19, 2012 - 12:00am

Cairo — Any agreement reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will be subject to far-reaching changes if Hamas comes to power in a democratic Palestinian state, a top Hamas leader told the Forward in an exclusive and wide-ranging interview.

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Radical action needed after Oslo's decline
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) April 19, 2012 - 12:00am

In 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed and the Palestinian Authority was born, the senior Israeli politician Yossi Beilin was a leading advocate for Palestinian self-rule. The accords, and the Authority, were intended to pave the way for permanent solutions on borders, refugees and two-state control.

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April 19th

NEWS: In Gaza, hopes for a better life under Hamas rule have turned into frustration and disappointment. Israel says it will be disciplining the soldier who was documented to have struck a Danish pro-Palestinian activist in the face with his rifle. PM Fayyad meets with the assaulted Danish activist. UN officials condemn Israel's eviction of a Palestinian family from their home in occupied East Jerusalem in favor of settlers. Fatah officials blame Hamas for the impasse in national unity negotiations. Journalist turned politician Yair Lapid says he'd be willing to serve in an Israeli coalition cabinet. Israeli settlers are building new outposts on privately-owned Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. Jewish-American lawmakers are unhappy with a Justice Department ruling regarding the difficulties of prosecuting Palestinians who allegedly killed Americans outside the United States. The US Supreme Court rules that Palestinian-Americans cannot sue the PA and PLO for alleged abuse in custody in the occupied territories. The Grand Mufti of Egypt is making a rare visit to Jerusalem. COMMENTARY: Ha'aretz says the Israeli public is in the grip of a terrifying apathy. Israel Harel says the soldier disciplined for striking the Danish activist is a scapegoat for the failings of the senior command. Ofer Shelah says the assault just shows the extent to which Israel doesn't know what to do with the occupied territories. The Jerusalem Post says Israelis were unrealistic to think that the UK would be harsher on Palestinian activist Raed Salah than Israel, of which he is a citizen. Salah explains why he went to the UK in the first place. Jonathan Rosen says Holocaust analogies and other exaggerations are allowing fear to drive Israeli policies. David Wilensky says Title VI should not be used to squelch free speech on campuses. Michael Young says the shadow of another possible Israel-Hezbollah war looms over southern Lebanon. Michael Jansen says, despite the risks, dissolving the PA could be a dramatic “game changer” between Israel and the Palestinians. Shibley Telhami looks at the Arab and Israeli dimensions of the controversy over Iran's nuclear program.

The Israeli and Arab Dimensions of Iran's Nuclear Program
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Brookings
by Shibley Telhami - (Analysis) April 10, 2012 - 12:00am

Suzanne Maloney draws attention to many important angles of the international crisis over Iran’s nuclear program and America’s policy choices. But there are also others for Washington to consider—namely, the Israeli and Arab dimensions. Here are ten brief points for the next president to reflect on.

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Game changer
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Michael Jansen - (Opinion) April 18, 2012 - 12:00am

While Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas does not intend to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, he has, at long last, admitted that the body, created under the flawed and defunct 1993 Oslo accords, has no authority. Abbas rightly blamed Israel for the failure of the “Oslo process” and said Israel stripped the Palestinian Authority of any “meaningful jurisdiction in the political, economic, territorial and security spheres”.

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