June 14th

Gaza sniper targets Israeli farmer, as shooting attacks increase
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
June 14, 2012 - 12:00am

A Palestinian sniper in the Gaza Strip on Thursday opened fire at an Israeli farmer in a community bordering the coastal enclave, the army told Xinhua. The farmer, who was unharmed in the attack, took cover behind a vehicle, which sustained damage in the shooting, according to Army radio. Troops in the vicinity returned deterrent fire, but it was unclear if the gunmen was hit.

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Gaza blockade threatens two-state solution
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
June 14, 2012 - 12:00am

Israel's 5-year blockade of the Gaza Strip has compromised the two-state solution in ways which will be difficult to reverse, an Israeli legal rights group has warned. "Gaza’s connections with Israel and the West Bank, vital for its economy and the welfare of its residents, are still subject to sweeping restrictions on movement," Gisha said in its latest report.

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The affable face of evil
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) June 14, 2012 - 12:00am

Israeli evil wears many faces these days. There are the rude, the crude and the thuggish, who still manage to generate some heat: When MK Miri Regev goes off on one of her jingoist, gutter-talk rampages - "the 'infiltrators' are a cancer" - some people are still shocked. The same goes for her partner in base incitement, MK Danny Danon, known for spouting his own swinish pearls of wisdom, or Interior Minister Eli Yishai, no piker when it comes to bandying about inflammatory language about crime or about spreading disease.

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Aid groups urge Israel to lift Gaza blockade
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Crispian Balmer - June 14, 2012 - 12:00am

Fifty international aid groups and United Nations agencies issued a joint appeal on Thursday calling on Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by Hamas Islamists. "For over five years in Gaza, more than 1.6 million people have been under blockade in violation of international law. More than half of these people are children. We the undersigned say with one voice: 'end the blockade now,'" the petition said.

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Occupation double-speak
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Michael Sfard - (Opinion) June 12, 2012 - 12:00am

We are now marking the 45th anniversary of the largest national project in our young country's history: the suppression of millions of peoples' longing for independence and freedom. This project is bigger than the National Water Carrier, more expensive than the Lavi fighter jet, which never did take off, and more foolish than the idea of draining Lake Hula, which wound up exacting a tremendous ecological cost. We are all invested in it up to our necks -- financially, politically and, most important, morally.

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Hamas informer in Israel on lecture tour
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Amy Teibel - June 14, 2012 - 12:00am

The son of a Hamas founder who renounced his father's militant group to spy for Israel has returned to the Jewish state on a pro-Israel lecture tour, an Israeli official said Thursday. Mosab Yousef was invited by Druse Arab lawmaker Ayoob Kara, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party.

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Ex-Israeli soldier seeks Palestinian citizenship
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Dalia Nammari - June 14, 2012 - 12:00am

In an odd twist to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian saga, a former Israeli soldier has embarked on a new fight: He wants to renounce his Israeli citizenship and move to a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank. Andre Pshenichnikov, a 23-year-old Jewish immigrant from Tajikistan, was recently detained by Israeli police for residing illegally in the Deheishe Refugee Camp near Bethlehem. There he told police that he wants to break all ties with Israel, give up his Israeli citizenship and obtain a Palestinian one instead.

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Gaza Five Years On: Hamas Settles In
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
by Nathan J. Brown - (Analysis) June 14, 2012 - 12:00am

As political upheavals spread over much of the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, regimes throughout the region were shaken and a few fell. But in both the West Bank and Gaza, a soft authoritarianism that has provoked uprisings elsewhere has only been further entrenching itself.

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June 13th

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.

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