March 27th, 2009

Israeli Use of Phosphorus Against Gazans Disputed
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Howard Schneider - December 31, 1969 - 8:00pm

Israel's use of white phosphorus artillery shells led to the deaths of at least 12 Palestinian civilians and destroyed millions of dollars in property during the recent three-week war in the Gaza Strip, the organization Human Rights Watch says in a report released Wednesday. Israeli military officials called the claim "baseless" and said the shells, designed to produce a smoke screen, were used in accordance with accepted rules.

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Troubled Palestinian Health System Heads for Overhaul
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Felice Friedson, Rachelle Kliger - March 26, 2009 - 12:00am

Two-year-old Rafiq lays his head peacefully on his mother’s shoulder, sticks a thumb in his mouth and buries his face in her black veil. Up until a short while ago Rafiq, whose family lives in Gaza, was at death’s door with a deadly kidney condition. But last September he was given a new lease of life when he was admitted to Barzilai hospital in Israel and nursed back to health.

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A Play-by-Play of Coalition Building: What it Means
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Middle East Progress
(Blog) March 26, 2009 - 12:00am

What is the current status of the coalition formation efforts? Benjamin Netanyahu now has agreements with Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas, Habayit Hayehudi [the Jewish Home] and Labor. He already has more than 60 members of Knesset [MKs]. In my opinion the National Union party won’t be in the government. Yahadut Hatorah [United Torah Judaism] also seems to have been left out.

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Gaza war crimes accusations start to haunt Israel
Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In The National - March 26, 2009 - 12:00am

NEW YORK // Accused of firing white phosphorous shells over densely packed communities and using a child as a human shield, Israeli troops are increasingly fielding allegations of war crimes committed during the Gaza onslaught.

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March 26th

BBC News reports that a West Bank settlement, unauthorized by the Israeli government, appears to be receiving state funding (1). Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to continue peace talks, but makes no mention of a Palestinian state (2). Human Rights Watch reports that Israel's use of white phosphorous shells in the Gaza war may constitute a war crime (3). Indirect talks regarding the release of captured soldier Gilad Shalit resume between Hamas and Israel (4) (13). A pair of op-eds discuss the current state of the Israel lobby in the U.S. in the wake of the Freedman affair (6) (10). Several opinion articles offer assessments of the prospects for peace and the urgency of action (5)(11) (12) (15).

New support for West Bank outpost
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Tim Franks - March 26, 2009 - 12:00am

An unauthorised Jewish settlement in the West Bank, illegal even under Israeli law, appears to benefiting from state funding, the BBC has uncovered. A road is being built from the established settlement of Eli, near the Palestinian city of Nablus, leading east to the illegal outpost at Hayovel. Settlement expansion is a major barrier to an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. The international community regards all settlements in the West Bank as illegal under international law.

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The pro-Israel lobby - 'alive, well, and bipartisan?'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Nathan Guttman - (Opinion) March 26, 2009 - 12:00am

The fight is over. Chas Freeman, the outspoken Israel critic appointed to chair the National Intelligence Council, is out. And now, both sides in the explosive firefight that broke out over his appointment are battling to frame the narrative over what it all meant. For some of Freeman's critics, the bottom line is what counts. "This shows the pro-Israel lobby is alive and well, and bipartisan," declared Jonathan Tobin, executive editor of the neoconservative journal Commentary, at a public forum just five days after Freeman's March 10 withdrawal.

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Palestinians Serenade Survivors in Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - March 26, 2009 - 12:00am

For just over an hour on Wednesday, a club for elderly Holocaust survivors on a side street in this suburban town south of Tel Aviv came alive with an encounter of an extraordinary kind. A youth orchestra came to play for the elderly Israelis, a good turn that might pass in other countries as routine. In this case, though, the entertainers were Palestinians, a group of musicians 12 to 17 years old from the Jenin refugee camp, once a notorious hotbed of militancy and violence in the northern reaches of the West Bank.

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Netanyahu Says Peace Talks Will Continue
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Howard Schneider - March 26, 2009 - 12:00am

Israel's incoming prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said Wednesday that he will pursue peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, but he withheld any endorsement of an independent Palestinian state. "I think that the Palestinians should understand that they have in our government a partner for peace, for security and for rapid economic development of the Palestinian economy," he told a business group in his most substantial remarks on the peace process since the Israeli elections in February.

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The Palestinian cause is being hijacked
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Michael Young - (Opinion) March 26, 2009 - 12:00am

I first met Kamal Medhat, whom I always knew as Kamal Naji, in early 2007, when I was looking for background information to review a book on militant Islam in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp. At the time, Kamal could still claim to have abandoned everything for the attractions of academia, though you knew even then that the finality of the man was not a fastidious thesis and a chalkboard.

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