September 17th

A Preventable Massacre ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Seth Anziska - (Opinion) September 16, 2012 - 12:00am ON the night of Sept. 16, 1982, the Israeli military allowed a right-wing Lebanese militia to enter two Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut. In the ensuing three-day rampage, the militia, linked to the Maronite Christian Phalange Party, raped, killed and dismembered at least 800 civilians, while Israeli flares illuminated the camps’ narrow and darkened alleyways. » Read more

Palestinian economic protests point to uncertain future for PA, Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) by Ben Sales - (Opinion) September 16, 2012 - 12:00am TEL AVIV (JTA) – Could the Palestinian Authority's budget woes end up costing Israel? Growing economic protests in the West Bank could lead to increased regional instability and perhaps even the end of the Palestinian Authority, experts are warning. At this point, however, they say the protests are unlikely to result in an eruption of violence against Israel. » Read more

Islam is ready for peace with Israel, says rabbi who has met with ‘whole strata’ of radicals ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Times of Israel by David Horovitz - (Interview) September 16, 2012 - 12:00am For 10 years, from 1999, Rabbi Michael Melchior was a member of Knesset, elected via the dovish Meimad faction — the political face of moderate religious Zionism. » Read more

When a Courtyard Becomes a Border ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS) by Pierre Klochendler - (Opinion) September 17, 2012 - 12:00am RAS EL-AMOUD, Occupied East Jerusalem, Sep 17 2012 (IPS) - Filistin Hamdallah looks disoriented, walking without purpose amidst the furniture strewn in the courtyard, as if she was moving home. Only the fresh laundry hanging on wires indicates that the Palestinian family is here to stay, to stay in conditions with Jewish neighbours that show just how difficult the divisions in Jerusalem can be. » Read more

Mistreatment of refugees in Israel doesn't stop at border ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Mya Guarnieri - (Opinion) September 17, 2012 - 12:00am Earlier this month, 21 Eritrean asylum seekers, including a 14-year-old child and two pregnant women, spent over a week trapped between fences on the Israeli side of the Israeli-Egyptian border. As the temperatures soared, one of the women reportedly miscarried. The group was not provided with any shelter; the "most moral army in the world" gave the refugees only small amounts of water and scraps of cloth to protect themselves from the sun. » Read more

U.S. will go to war with Iran in 2013, says ex-U.S. ambassador to Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz (Interview) September 17, 2012 - 12:00am Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk said on Sunday that he thinks the U.S. will go to war with Iran over its nuclear program in 2013. Speaking during a panel on the CBS program Face the Nation, Indyk said, "I'm afraid that 2013 is going to be a year in which we're going to have a military confrontation with Iran." » Read more

Zahhar: Gaza more secure than West Bank ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency (Interview) September 15, 2012 - 12:00am BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) – Seven years after Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip, several things have changed both at the political and the economic level, Hamas official Mahmoud Zahhar said Friday. Speaking to Ma’an, Zahhar asserted that “Gaza is free of occupation, and contiguity with the outside world is easier as visitors from all over the world visited the coastal enclave.” » Read more

Under Obama or Romney, U.S. Mideast policy won’t change much ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Aaron David Miller - (Opinion) September 14, 2012 - 12:00am A presidential campaign focused largely on domestic economic issues veered into foreign policy after the killing of America’s ambassador to Libya on Tuesday and the eruption of anti-U.S. protests from Egypt to Yemen. Both presidential candidates responded — and their differences have produced debates over which would be stronger on the world stage. Was President Obama forceful enough? » Read more

The forgotten massacre ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by Robert Fisk - (Opinion) September 15, 2012 - 12:00am The memories remain, of course. The man who lost his family in an earlier massacre, only to watch the young men of Chatila lined up after the new killings and marched off to death. But – like the muck piled on the garbage tip amid the concrete hovels – the stench of injustice still pervades the camps where 1,700 Palestinians were butchered 30 years ago next week. » Read more

Israeli Leader Makes Case Against Iran on U.S. TV ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Steven Lee Myers - (Editorial) September 16, 2012 - 12:00am WASHINGTON — Having been rebuffed privately by President Obama last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel took to the airwaves in the United States on Sunday to warn that Iran was only six or seven months from having “90 percent” of what it needed to make an atomic bomb. » Read more