NEWS: A British eyewitness to the killing of Rachel Corrie contradicts the official Israeli account in a statement to the New York Times. Former commandos are coming to dominate Israel's politics. Egypt is reportedly negotiating with extremists in the Sinai Peninsula, as it simultaneously widens its campaign against them. FM Malki says Palestinians have put their renewed UN efforts on hold for now. A woman in Gaza is critically injured by Israeli forces. Two Palestinian cars are torched in the occupied West Bank. FM Lieberman invites Pres. Morsy to visit Israel. French authorities say they have opened a murder investigation into the death of the late Pres. Arafat, and a former senior Israeli official denies Israel was involved in any way in his death. PM Fayyad approves measures to counter the growing electricity crisis. A new report suggests that 40% of high school seniors in occupied East Jerusalem drop out. Fayyad will be making the case for statehood and introducing a new film about it at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. COMMENTARY: Anshel Pfeffer says the extreme right wing in Europe is now embroiled in a controversy over who to hate more: Muslims or Jews? Mordechai Twersky recalls a massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929. Avi Issacharoff asks why, in the end, Hamas did not show up in Tehran during the NAM. The Jerusalem Post says the Rachel Corrie verdict should be a wake-up call for pro-Palestinian activists, but Hussein Ibish says it should be a wake-up call to Americans. The National says the verdict exposes the falsity of Israel's official narrative of Corrie's death. Natalia Simanovsky says the media missed the real importance of the visit to Auschwitz by an advisor to Pres. Abbas. David Horovitz outlines the bitter debate among Israeli insiders about the possibility of an attack against Iran.

Bulldozing the Special Relationship
In Print by Hussein Ibish - Foreign Policy (Opinion) - August 28, 2012 - 12:00am

Only the most naive observers would be surprised by the verdict from an Israeli court on the civil case brought by the parents of Rachel Corrie, the American activist killed in 2003 at the hands of the Israeli military. The court ruled this week that Israel was not responsible for the death of the 23-year-old student, referring to it as a "regrettable accident" that Corrie herself could have prevented by staying out of the area.


The most fateful decision of all
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Times of Israel
by David Horovitz - (Analysis) August 28, 2012 - 12:00am


Hear that frantic whispering noise beneath the hum of the air-conditioners in this sweltering Israeli summer? That’s the sound of many Israeli insiders repeating over and over and over: Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.


Auschwitz and Palestinians: what the media missed
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Natalia Simanovsky - (Opinion) August 29, 2012 - 12:00am


In late July, Ziad al-Bandak, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made an official visit to the Auschwitz Holocaust memorial to pay respect to the million-and-a-half victims of the camp, most of whom were Jewish.


Corrie verdict exposes Israel's false narrative
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) August 29, 2012 - 12:00am


After nine years of injustice, the Israeli court's decision did not come as much of a surprise. For the parents of the 23-year-old American activist crushed by an Israeli bulldozer as she tried to stop it from demolishing a Palestinian home, there will be no justice from an Israeli court. But today, perhaps more than at any time since her death, Rachel Corrie continues to fight the injustice that Palestinians face under occupation.


Bulldozing the Special Relationship
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) August 28, 2012 - 12:00am


Only the most naive observers would be surprised by the verdict from an Israeli court on the civil case brought by the parents of Rachel Corrie, the American activist killed in 2003 at the hands of the Israeli military. The court ruled this week that Israel was not responsible for the death of the 23-year-old student, referring to it as a "regrettable accident" that Corrie herself could have prevented by staying out of the area.


The Corrie verdict
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
(Editorial) August 28, 2012 - 12:00am


The death of 23-year-old American rights activist Rachel Corrie was a “regrettable accident,” not an intentional war crime, Haifa District Court Judge Oded Gershon ruled on Tuesday. For those following the trial who are unbiased by a perennial desire to bash Israel and search tirelessly for its faults, the verdict was no surprise.


Why did Hamas cancel participation in Iran's Non-Aligned Movement summit?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Avi Issacharoff - (Opinion) August 29, 2012 - 12:00am


A fierce storm briefly raged in the Palestinian political arena over the weekend. A few hours after the Hamas government spokesman announced in Gaza on Saturday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had invited Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to attend the Non-Aligned Movement conference and that Haniyeh intended to go, officials close to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that if Haniyeh goes to Tehran, Abbas would not.


Scars of an Israeli survivor of the Hebron massacre
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Mordechai Twersky - (Opinion) August 29, 2012 - 12:00am


Shlomo Slonim gazes at four large black and white photos of family members adorning the dining room wall of his apartment in Ra'anana, a city in central Israel. He battles with his health. He has recurrent flashbacks. But some memories cut even deeper than the one-inch indentation above his freckled forehead and the scars on his right hand from where his fingers were nearly severed.


The U.K. extreme right is undecided on who to hate: Jews or Muslims?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Anshel Pfeffer - (Opinion) August 29, 2012 - 12:00am


The battle for leadership of Britain's far-right took a bizarre twist this month when the British National Party, long the most prominent racist group in British politics, issued a detailed report accusing their main rivals, the English Defense League, of being the “useful idiots” of “neo-cons” and “ultra-Zionists.”



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