NEWS: PM Fayyad reshuffles the PA cabinet. US Amb. to Israel Shapiro says the US is prepared to attack Iranian nuclear facilities if it decides to, although it prefers to continue negotiations. Questions begin to emerge about how much effect Israel's new coalition will have on moving its policies towards the political center. In spite of the agreement between Israel and Palestinian prisoners, seven still remain on hunger strike. Occupation forces arrest a Palestinian TV producer and confiscate his equipment. Seven Palestinians are injured by Israeli artillery fire in Gaza. The PA says it will hold municipal elections in the West Bank even without the cooperation of Hamas in Gaza. The Israeli military demolishes two small “unauthorized” settlement outposts. The Independent profiles the plight of Palestinian villagers in a border area designated as a military zone by Israel. According to an annual BBC poll, Israel's negative international image continues to decline, outstripped only by Iran and Pakistan, and coming in jointly third with North Korea. COMMENTARY: Ari Shavit says Palestinians must recognize the Jewish narrative and grand catastrophe in order for Israelis to reciprocate. Ha'aretz says Israel must change its attitude towards Palestinian prisoners. Roni Schocken says Israel's “Nakba Law” is an attack on human rights. Jonathan Rosen says that over time the question of Palestinian refugee return has become more an abstract principle than a specified demand. Jessica Montell says Israel must find a new way of dealing with Palestinian “administrative detainees.” Bernard Avishai says that by insisting on a distinction between Jewish nationality and Israeli citizenship, Israel has yet to fully recognize itself. Jamal Muqbel says peace seems farther off than ever. Amr Ezzat recounts his experiences attending a recent literary festival in Gaza. Aaron David Miller says Israel's plummeting international image isn't primarily due to a campaign of delegitimization, but its own policies and actions. Hussein Ibish asks if the new Israeli coalition government is really going to break from the hard-line positions, especially on settlement outposts, of the previous one.

Is Israel united in obstruction?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from NOW Lebanon
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) May 15, 2012 - 12:00am

The new coalition government suddenly formed last week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the new leader of the Kadima party, Shaul Mofaz, remains something of a mystery. It is essentially a deal between two men, not two parties. Only Netanyahu and Mofaz really know the terms under which they joined forces. 

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Israel's Image Revisted
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy
by Aaron David Miller - (Opinion) May 16, 2012 - 12:00am

Writing in the Wall Street Journal this week on the occasion of Israeli Independence Day, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren penned a powerful op-ed on the erosion of Israel's image. His conclusion: Israel's image has deteriorated in large part because of a "systematic delegitimization of the Jewish state."

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Ice cream in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Egypt Independent
by Amr Ezzat - (Opinion) May 15, 2012 - 12:00am

In 2008, stifled by an Israeli blockade exacerbated by a weak Egyptian position, Gazans barged through Egypt’s borders to get needed supplies of food and other products. At the time, some Egyptians sympathized with our brothers in Gaza, while others condemned their act, saying their break-in violated Egypt's sovereignty. In response I published an article in my blog titled “Crossing the lines,” in which I mocked those who were more angered by the Palestinians’ transgression of the borders than they were by their suffering and suppression. 

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Prisoners and the wounded, crossing borders
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Jamal Muqbel - (Opinion) May 17, 2012 - 12:00am

About four years ago, a friend of mine told me about a meeting between Israelis and Palestinians near the Dead Sea. I really did not want to get involved at all, but my friend said to me, "Just come with me and you do not have to talk or participate."

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Israel Must Recognize Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Bernard Avishai - (Opinion) May 17, 2012 - 12:00am

The Israeli judiciary today reaffirmed that Israel is the only country on earth that does not recognize itself. 

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Time for a new deal for administrative detainees
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Jessica Montell - (Opinion) May 17, 2012 - 12:00am

Back in 1997, not long after I joined the B’Tselem staff, one of the first projects I was assigned was to research the issue of administrative detention. I collected hundreds of individual detention orders and pored over hundreds of transcripts from administrative detention appeal hearings. What struck me most about Israel’s use of administrative detention was the sense that the system functioned like an assembly line, issuing cookie-cutter detention orders.

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Inside Out: Nakba lessons
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Jonathan Rosen - (Opinion) May 16, 2012 - 12:00am

Palestinians and their supporters commemorated Nakba Day on Tuesday, marking the 64th anniversary of what they refer to as the “catastrophe” of the fall of Palestine and the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. In the course of the War of Independence in 1948-9 hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their homes and livelihoods, and subsequently found themselves unable to go home. Many of the refugees and their descendants still live in squalid refugee camps across the Middle East, clinging to a dream of a personal return and national restoration.

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Chilling effect of the Nakba Law on Israel's human rights
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Roni Schocken - (Opinion) May 17, 2012 - 12:00am

By rejecting the petition calling for the repeal of the Nakba Law in January of this year, the High Court of Justice ignored the violation of human rights inherent in the danger that institutions may now preemptively refuse to fund activities that involve the exercise of free speech, for fear of financial sanctions.

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Israel has to change the way it views Palestinian prisoners
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) May 17, 2012 - 12:00am

Palestinian society, like every society waging a struggle for national liberation, feels a special responsibility toward those of its sons and daughters who have sacrificed their lives or their freedom for the collective. Palestinians consider the people we call "terrorists" or "murderers" as "freedom fighters" and "national heroes." In many cases, as in South Africa and Northern Ireland, it was prisoner leaders who effected reconciliation.

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