June 26th

Settlers Begin Evacuation of a West Bank Outpost
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Jodi Rudoren - June 26, 2012 - 12:00am

BEIT EL, West Bank — The moving trucks arrived here on Tuesday morning while the men were in the middle of morning prayers, their heads covered by prayer shawls, and so began the first peaceful evacuation of a Jewish settlement from the occupied territories in memory.

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June 25th

NEWS: Hamas celebrates the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate in Egypt's presidential election while Israel frets. Hamas threatens to escalate attacks against Israel. Israel and the US are planning their largest-ever joint military drill. PLO official Ishtayya says Palestinians are moving forward with efforts to gain membership in more UN bodies but the US has asked for a delay. Fatah says Pres. Abbas and Hamas leader Mishaal have agreed to set a date for their next meeting. The PA has arrested more than 100 people following the assassination of the governor of Jenin and is holding them under controversial circumstances. Settler Council leaders denounce extremist “price tag” violence. The mixed Jewish-Arab town of Acre is drawing more tourists and Jewish extremists. A Palestinian man is reported to have been killed during an Israeli military training exercise in the occupied West Bank. COMMENTARY: The Washington Post interviews PM Fayyad, who says he may run in future elections. Nathan Thrall says a third intifada is “inevitable.” Merav Michaeli says police are to blame for clashes with social justice protesters in Tel Aviv. Rivka Cohen says Israel's Jewish and Arab schools are separate and distinctly unequal. Khaled Abu Toameh says Hamas seems to be losing control of the Gaza Strip. Maya Sela says Israelis could learn from Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple if she would allow a Hebrew translation. Walid Choucair says it makes no sense for Palestinians or other Arabs to put their cause on hold for the next US elections, which are always around the corner. Yael Gvirtz asks what the real costs of the settlements are to Israel. Aaron David Miller looks at how the Palestinian-Israeli peace process got sidelined. Akiva Eldar says it's a shame that Israeli “social justice” protesters don't notice of the plight of Palestinians living under occupation. Hazem Saghiyeh says that regarding the tragedy of the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, there is no answer but the Lebanese state but no state to provide that answer.

Blocked prospects
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from NOW Lebanon
by Hazem Saghiyeh - (Opinion) June 25, 2012 - 12:00am

The Nahr al-Bared ordeal epitomizes the ordeal befalling Lebanon as a whole, including with regard to the Palestinian issue. The Nahr al-Bared camp, which is still witnessing the same long-term misery and marginalization added to destruction that was not followed by the promised reconstruction, summarizes the situation of the Palestinian “community” in Lebanon. However, it also epitomizes the inability of the sectarian regime, which is extremely attached to “balances,” to take any useful step in dealing with the Nahr al-Bared ordeal (and others as well).

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Palestinian disinheritance sponsored by Oslo
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) June 25, 2012 - 12:00am

It's a shame the police don't show the same determination treating the settlers who invade private Palestinian land as they do evicting the temporary settlers on Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard. It's a shame the social justice activists ignore the creeping eviction by the Israeli government in the occupied territories.

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The Overshadowed Peace Process
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National Interest
by Aaron David Miller - (Opinion) June 22, 2012 - 12:00am

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, there once lived something called the Arab-Israeli peace process. It never lived an altogether happy life, but it did actually exist and breathe. In fact, it was capable of some spectacular highs (Egyptian-Israeli and Israeli-Jordanian peace treaties) and a great many lows. More failures than successes, to be sure, but there was—at least most of the time—a real sense of hope and possibility and a credible process worth pursuing.

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The Real Cost of Israel's Settlers
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Yedioth Ahronoth
by Yael Gvirtz - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am

The only difference between the hate crime perpetrated at Neve Shalom ("Oasis of Peace," a cooperative village jointly established by Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel as a model of coexistence) and others is that the target this time around was an Israeli village.

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“Freezing” Palestine – not the Settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Hayat
by Walid Choucair - (Opinion) June 22, 2012 - 12:00am

Eighteen months into the Arab Spring, as expected, the Palestinian situation is being neglected in the Arab world and by the international community. All of the countries concerned with Palestine have been busy tending to their domestic situations, or the regional repercussions of Arab uprisings on other countries, which has allowed Israel to act unilaterally against the Palestinians.

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Israeli army ‘game’ leaves one Palestinian dead
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Selim Saheb Ettaba - June 25, 2012 - 12:00am

As the Shawakha brothers rushed to protect their home from intruders, they had no clue they were unwitting participants in an Israeli army exercise that would leave one of them dead. “It was March 27, 1:30 in the morning,” recalls Akram Shawakha, 36, who was on watch duty on the top floor of the modest family home on a hill east of the West Bank city of Ramallah. Their house is on the outskirts of the wealthy village of Rammun, where most residents have emigrated to America.

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Alice Walker's The Color Purple should be read in Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Maya Sela - (Opinion) June 22, 2012 - 12:00am

Literature at its best should be a Trojan horse. Good authors don't just tell us a story to pass the time in a pleasant way; he or she offers ideas that insinuate themselves into the reader's mind, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes in the form of a tale that disguises its moral and cultural lessons. Books can provide readers a mirror in which they will see something they hadn't seen before, and give them the opportunity of subsequently seeing themselves and their surroundings in a different light.

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Israel's historic city of Acre faces tourist and settler tensions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - June 24, 2012 - 12:00am

Amid narrow winding alleys, crumbling courtyards and dark doorways of neglected buildings, a work of art gleams within the walls of Israel's ancient but dilapidated city of Acre. The Efendi Palace hotel opened in March after eight-and-a-half years of painstaking restoration.

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