May 23rd

Palestinian financial problems ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Ray Hanania - (Opinion) May 22, 2012 - 12:00am Much is made of the fact that the late president Yasser Arafat controlled billions in funds that were used to support the Palestinian struggle for statehood and freedom. And since it also involved politics, more than a few people asserted there was corruption, asking how could one man be in charge of so much money? When George Washington led the American revolution against the British in the mid-18th century, he also controlled a vast sum of money, in the tens of millions, which back then was the equivalent of hundreds of millions, maybe even billions. » Read more

Stopping Them From ‘Tuning Out Israel’ ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Leonard Fein - (Opinion) May 20, 2012 - 12:00am Just about wherever I go these days, or so it seems, I encounter 20-somethings who have tuned out of Israel. I know that there’s a difference between anecdotes and evidence, but when a series of uninvited anecdotes all point in the same direction — well, that’s a lot of smoke, and it makes sense to look for the fire. » Read more

Israel cannot be compared to apartheid South Africa ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Denis MacShane - (Opinion) May 21, 2012 - 12:00am Speaking at the Istanbul World Political Forum last week, the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy got at least one listener to his denunciation of Israel as a "tyranny" worked up. » Read more

Don't Tell Anyone But Israel and the Palestinians Have Been Negotiating ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Peter Beinart - (Opinion) May 22, 2012 - 12:00am Last week I debated The Crisis of Zionism with my friend David Suissa at Temple Israel in Los Angeles. Whenever I suggested that Benjamin Netanyahu might be less than enthusiastic about birthing a Palestinian state near the 1967 lines, David responded that at least Netanyahu was willing to talk. » Read more

Israel is doing everything to separate Gaza, West Bank ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Amira Hass - (Opinion) May 23, 2012 - 12:00am An elephant will be sitting Wednesday in the courtroom of Supreme Court justices Asher Grunis, Salim Joubran and Noam Sohlberg. The elephant will occupy the places of the five plaintiffs, who will be absent: five women from the Gaza Strip who were accepted into Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. Four want to go on to a master's degree in gender studies. » Read more

The Palestinian Disunity Government ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Council On Foreign Relations by Elliott Abrams - (Blog) May 22, 2012 - 12:00am Last Sunday in Cairo, Hamas and Fatah signed an agreement to create the national unity government to which they agreed in principle months ago in Doha. They will meet on May 27 and have given themselves ten days to negotiate a new coalition that would then carry out elections. This announcement is interesting and potentially significant, but not in obvious ways. First, it was brokered by the Egyptian General Intelligence Service. This is a significant display of the continued vigor of that organization and its influence on the Palestinian parties. » Read more

Power With Purpose ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Thomas L. Friedman - (Opinion) May 22, 2012 - 12:00am Political power is always a double-edged sword. The more of it you amass, the more people expect you to use it to do big things, and, when you don’t, the more ineffectual you look. That’s the dilemma in which Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel finds himself. He avoided early elections by adding a new centrist coalition partner to his right-wing cabinet, giving him control of 96 of the 120 seats in Parliament. There are Arab dictators who didn’t have majorities that big after rigged elections. » Read more

AN ISRAELI VIEW: Prisoner of the unity government ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons by Yossi Beilin - (Opinion) May 21, 2012 - 12:00am The recent expansion of the ruling coalition in Israel to 94 members of Knesset did not reflect an intention either to lead or to thwart a peace process. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu needed no reinforcements in order to maintain a policy that has succeeded very nicely thus far from his standpoint: refuse to freeze settlement construction, make frequent declarations regarding a vague readiness to contemplate "painful compromises" and a Palestinian state somewhere in the West Bank, and place the blame for the non-existence of a peace process on the Palestinian side. » Read more

Palestinian writer describes Syrian prisons as 'slaughterhouses' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press May 23, 2012 - 12:00am AMMAN // A prominent Palestinian writer who spent nearly three weeks in jail in Syria described the prisons as "human slaughterhouses", saying security agents beat detainees with batons, crammed them into stinking cells and tied them to beds at night. » Read more

A PALESTINIAN VIEW: Israel's 'bunker government' 2012 ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons by Mahdi Abdul Hadi - (Opinion) May 21, 2012 - 12:00am Most recently, we have witnessed Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in four different spheres. Simultaneously, he was architect of the coalition deal with Israeli opposition party Kadima; negotiations (with Egypt) and the subsequent compromise ending the Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike; the response of "words and not deeds" to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' letter; and the continuation of military operations against Palestinians in Gaza and settlement expansion in the West Bank, including Jerusalem. » Read more