NEWS: A man in Gaza commits self immolation apparently in an act of economic despair. In response to Israeli prompting, the US is weighing new measures against Iran. Pro-settler vandals attack a monastery near Jerusalem. Egypt appoints a new ambassador to Israel. 300 settlers finally evacuate a tiny outpost after years of wrangling, although some of them are vowing to return. Israeli authorities threaten to demolish a Bedouin school in the occupied West Bank. Occupation forces are increasingly using their new “skunk” weapon against Palestinian protesters. Palestinians are increasingly distressed by the high cost of living in the West Bank. Sweeping new divorce laws empowering wives come into effect in the West Bank. Two people are killed as Syrian government forces again shell a Palestinian refugee camp. Israeli settlers and police begin evicting a Palestinian family in occupied East Jerusalem. Hamas is persisting with plans to censor the Internet in Gaza. Palestinians accuse Israel of pillaging Dead Sea resources. Hugh Naylor looks at the motivations for Suha Arafat's campaign regarding her late husband's death. Egyptian Jihadists claim Palestinians were behind the attack on Egyptian forces in Sinai. Palestinian refugees from Syria are facing harsh conditions in Jordan. COMMENTARY: Hussein Ibish says Americans have to make up their minds about whether Israeli-Palestinian peace is a vital national interest or not. Paul Thomas Chamberlin says history shows today's terrorists can be tomorrow's peacemakers. Avi Issacharoff says Israel, Egypt and Hamas need to work in an uneasy, unspoken coalition against Sinai extremists. Oudeh Basharat says emerging Arab democracy is good for Israel. Nir Hasson says a united Palestinian electorate could pick the next mayor of Jerusalem. Nahum Barnea says as bad as the current Israeli government is, the next one won't be any better. Herb Keinon says US-Israel differences over Iran are mainly due to the upcoming American election. Leonard Fein says the occupation is corrupting the soul of Israel. Julia Hurley says a new UN report has sounded a wake-up call on living conditions in Gaza. Shai Feldman says Pres. Peres is still important.

Is peace a “vital” American interest?
In Print by Hussein Ibish - NOW Lebanon (Opinion) - September 4, 2012 - 12:00am

“Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a vital national security interest,” the voice of the American foreign policy consensus has intoned, with its trademark gravitas, for the past decade. “But,” it continues sagely, “We cannot want peace more than the parties themselves.” Around Washington wise heads have nodded grimly at the self-evidence of this hegemonic dictum. 

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Is peace a “vital” American interest?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from NOW Lebanon
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) September 4, 2012 - 12:00am

“Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a vital national security interest,” the voice of the American foreign policy consensus has intoned, with its trademark gravitas, for the past decade. “But,” it continues sagely, “We cannot want peace more than the parties themselves.” Around Washington wise heads have nodded grimly at the self-evidence of this hegemonic dictum. 

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Why Shimon Peres Still Matters
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor
by Shai Feldman - (Opinion) September 3, 2012 - 12:00am

Some three weeks ago, on the occasion of his 89th birthday, Israeli President Shimon Peres gave loud and clear public expression to his opposition to a possible Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations. This followed two years during which Peres is said to have counseled Israel’s leaders in closed quarters against the ramifications of such an attack. Giving a number of separate interviews on Aug. 16, Peres did not oppose such a strike under all circumstances. Rather, he warned against an attack that would not receive a green light from Washington. 

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Gaza's children in an 'unliveable' siege cannot wait for 2020
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Julia C Hurley - (Opinion) September 4, 2012 - 12:00am

Last week, the United Nations released a report questioning whether or not Gaza will be liveable by 2020, with the conclusion that if the siege continues, then living there will become literally impossible. Gaza's development has been thrown off track, and "de-development" has set in, leaving the UN saying that "even if the political situation were to improve dramatically over the next years, the issues identified in this study would still need to be addressed as a matter of urgency".

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Occupation Corrupts Soul of Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Leonard Fein - (Opinion) September 3, 2012 - 12:00am

It is tempting to impute retroactive intentionality to yesterday’s events. As Gershom Gorenberg felicitously puts it, we mistakenly assume “that if things turned out a certain way, someone planned it that way.” Looking back now, it may seem a foregone conclusion that Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank (and in Golan, too) was from the beginning an evil design, intended to encroach on Palestinian rights rather than to solve immediate problems. But the effort to draw a straight line of intentionality from then to now obscures more than it clarifies.

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It's the elections, stupid
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Herb Keinon - (Opinion) September 3, 2012 - 12:00am

Here is why all the talk about Iran has the mind reeling: Yediot Aharonot led its front page Monday with a story claiming the United States sent secret messages – through the Europeans – to the Iranians saying that it would not stand behind Israel if Jerusalem attacks.

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A not so happy new year
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Nahum Barnea - (Opinion) September 4, 2012 - 12:00am

t is customary for Jews to wish each other a happy new year from the beginning of the month of Elul. It is a nice tradition, and I embrace it every year, including this one. But this year I was confronted with a serious credibility problem: I wish a happy new year, but people refuse to believe me.

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Palestinian Zionism
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Nir Hasson - (Opinion) September 4, 2012 - 12:00am

Representatives of American-Jewish businessman Irving Moskowitz on Monday took over a room in the home of the Hamdallah family in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al-Amud. As in previous cases, the emissaries of Moskowitz, whose foundation raises funds for Jewish housing projects in Arab neighborhoods, enjoy a privilege that East Jerusalem's Palestinians don't have: to get back property that was abandoned during the 1948 War of Independence.

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The Arabs are no longer the same Arabs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Oudeh Basharat - (Opinion) September 4, 2012 - 12:00am

At the time of writing these lines, the sun continues to shine and even though the Muslim Brotherhood is in power in Egypt, the country has not been cloaked in darkness. It was not out of excessive love of secularism that Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi declared in Tehran that Egypt is a modern, constitutional democracy. Egypt has not adapted itself to the Brotherhood, it is the Brotherhood that has adapted itself to Egypt, which is known as "Umm al-Dunya," the mother of the world.

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