Question and Answer: Norman Finkelstein
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Tablet Magazine
by David Samuels - (Interview) June 11, 2012 - 12:00am

For three decades, Norman Finkelstein has been the American Jewish community’s problem-child—denounced as a hysteric, a marginal ideologue, and a self-hating Jew. Selfless and vain, highly emotional—sometimes hysterical—in tone yet relentlessly logical in his arguments, he is now an academic with a doctorate from Princeton whose attacks on “the Holocaust Industry” and public cheerleading for Hezbollah have rendered him so toxic that he can’t obtain even the lowliest adjunct teaching position at any community college in America.

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NEWS: The Vatican denies it is considering changing its stance on occupied East Jerusalem. The Israeli military suspends a soldier videotaped throwing stones and shooting at Palestinians. Palestinian laborers protest at an Israeli checkpoint in the occupied West Bank. An Israeli government report harshly criticizes PM Netanyahu's and DM Barak's decision-making regarding the deadly flotilla incident ywo years ago. Israeli occupation forces plan to demolish an entire village near Hebron. FIFA urges the Israeli FA to take up the issue of a hunger striking Palestinian soccer player. A Fatah official says Israeli settlement expansion may push the Palestinians back towards the UN. Israel is seeking to block the PA from registering the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem under Palestine at an upcoming World Heritage Committee meeting. A bipartisan letter by US House members seeks the release of convicted Israeli spy Pollard. Jordanian Muslim Brothers lead a humanitarian aid delegation to Gaza. The uproar over the Ulpana settlement outpost was the result of Palestinian legal action in Israeli courts. Jordan presses the US to reengage the Israeli-Palestinian issue before the November elections. COMMENTARY: ATFP Pres. Ziad Asali says, in order for Palestinians and Israelis to honor their tragic histories, they must work for peace. Xinhua interviews Chief Palestinian negotiator Erekat. Amira Hass says it's not Netanyahu who needs warnings from experts about a possible third intifada, but the Israeli public. Gershon Baskin says Israelis should understand what it means for Palestinians to still be committed to peace. Howard Brenton says it's time for all parties to stop harassment and detention of members of Jenin's Freedom theatre. Kathleen Paratis says, with negotiations at an impasse, unilateralism may be the only way forward. Micah Stein makes the case for Israel deporting African migrants. Tablet interviews Norman Finkelstein.

To honor a tragic history, we must work for peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Ziad Asali - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am

I do not need anyone to teach me about the Palestinian Nakba. It is the defining moment of my existence. During the 1948 war, my family had fled our home in Talpiot in southeast Jerusalem and taken shelter in a monastery. We quickly gathered some possessions and climbed down and up the mountain to Bethany, and then to Jericho. We eventually resettled as refugees in East Jerusalem.Because I was a graduating medical student at the American University of Beirut during the war of 1967, I became a double-refugee.

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Jordan presses US to refocus on Israeli-Palestinian conflict before November election
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Hill
by Julian Pecquet - June 12, 2012 - 12:00am

The Obama administration needs to recommit to helping solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or risk the ire of a whole generation of Arab youth demanding democratic change in the region, Jordan's foreign minister cautioned during a visit to Washington Tuesday. “You don't want to get to the U.S. election without something substantial in motion,” Nasser Judeh said in remarks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Judeh addressed the think tank after meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday.

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The Case for Deportation
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Micah Stein - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am

On Monday, Israeli police began rounding up illegal African immigrants as the first step in a campaign of mass arrests and deportations around the country. Earlier this year, the Knesset passed an “anti-infiltration” bill, which allows police to detain illegal immigrants for years without a trial and punishes Israelis who employ, house, or transport illegal immigrants.

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Palestinians enjoy land victory in Israeli courts
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Noah Browning - June 12, 2012 - 12:00am

More used to enduring eviction orders than enforcing them, Palestinians are relishing the Israeli government's discomfort as it struggles to evacuate five settler buildings in the occupied West Bank. Israel's supreme court upheld a petition by a group of Palestinian landowners last month, mandating a demolition order by July 1 against the apartment blocs that sit on Ulpana Hill above the Palestinian village of Dura al-Qara.

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My Way or the Highway
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Kathleen Peratis - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am

If you say that the peace process, like the Wicked Witch, is not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead, no one will argue with you. Israel and the Palestinian Authority have not had a real negotiating session since September 2010, when so-called “talks” collapsed following a so-called settlement “freeze.” The last sign of life in the peace process was even earlier, in September 2008, when Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas came this close to a deal.

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Stand up for West Bank's Freedom theatre
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Howard Brenton - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am

What price the freedom to put on plays? The odd bad review in the Daily Telegraph (if you're me)? Or protesters at Shakespeare's Globe (if you're performing in Habima theatre's Israeli version of The Merchant of Venice)?

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Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood on aid visit to Gaza Strip
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Hugh Naylor - June 13, 2012 - 12:00am

A humanitarian-aid delegation led by Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood is on a weeklong visit to the Gaza Strip, as Palestinians prepared to mark tomorrow's fifth anniversary of Hamas's conquest of the territory. Some 10 tonnes of medical aid arrived in Gaza on Sunday with the delegation of 100 activists from 17 Arab countries, the unofficial Palestinian news agency Maan reported on Monday.

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Bipartisan House letter seeks Pollard’s release
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
June 12, 2012 - 12:00am

Congressional Democrats and Republicans are joining forces for the first time in more than a decade in an effort to secure Jonathan Pollard's release. A bipartisan letter is circulating in the U.S. House of Representatives soliciting signatures on a letter to President Obama asking him to commute Pollard's sentence to time served. The "Dear Colleague" letter is signed by veteran House members Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.).

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