October 3rd

How I became a target for Israel's 'Jewish terrorists' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent October 1, 2008 - 8:00pm Zeev Sternhell is careful about his choice of words when he unhesitatingly calls the pipe bomb which exploded outside his front door last week "an act of Jewish terrorism." As a Holocaust survivor orphaned by the age of seven and a combat veteran of Israel's wars, Professor Sternhell, 73, who was lucky to have only been injured in the leg by flying shrapnel from the bomb, is "horrified" not for himself but because it might have hit his wife, daughter his grandchildren on one of their sleepovers, or their neighbours. "It was a terror act because they couldn't know who would have been hit." » Read more

October 2nd

'Hundreds join' settler violence ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News October 1, 2008 - 8:00pm Hundreds of settlers are engaged in violence against Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, the senior Israeli commander in the West Bank has said. Majr-Gen Gadi Shamni said diverting military resources to deal with settlers impaired the army's ability to carry out operations against militants. A recent UN report recorded 222 acts of settler violence in the first half of 2008 compared with 291 in all of 2007. Palestinians have long complained of settler harassment and intimidation. They have also complained the Israeli military does little to stop or restrain the settlers. » Read more

October 1st

Dozens of Palestinians to resettle in Sweden ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News September 29, 2008 - 8:00pm Thirty-nine Palestinians on Tuesday left for Hungary on board a plane en route to Sweden where they are resettling. The 39 are among nearly 160 Palestinians that Sweden has agreed to take from among hundreds of Palestinians who have been stranded in makeshift camps in Iraq. Earlier this month, 25 Palestinians left for Iceland and 117 went to Chile in January. Palestinians in Iraq have become a target for persecution in recent years because they are seen as having been favoured under Saddam Hussain's regime.

Khamenei: Iran will never abandon Hamas, its holy warrior Haniyeh ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press by Natasha Mozgovaya - September 30, 2008 - 8:00pm Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday said his country will stand beside Gaza's Hamas rulers and that Israel is on the path to eventual destruction. According to Iranian state-run TV, Khamenei called Hamas' prime minister in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, a "mojahed," or soldier of holy war, saying the Iranian nation will "never let you be alone." It also quoted him as saying Israel's Zionist regime is moving toward weakness, destruction and defeat and that the current generation of Palestinians will see "that great day." » Read more

Israel's West Bank roadblocks increasing, says UN ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Wafa Amr - September 29, 2008 - 8:00pm Closure of the West Bank for the Jewish New Year placed further restrictions on the movement of Palestinians marking the end of Ramadan on Tuesday. Despite pledges to ease travel restrictions, Israel has increased the number of roadblocks and checkpoints over the last six months in the occupied West Bank, according to a United Nations report made public this week. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says the Israeli army erected 19 new "obstacles" since April, raising the total to 630, including 93 checkpoints controlled by soldiers. » Read more

Book ban ends rare Arab-Israeli cultural exchange ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Joseph Nasr - September 30, 2008 - 8:00pm For 15 years Israeli Saleh Abbasi has traded books between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbours, fostering a rare cultural link. But in August Israeli authorities suddenly refused to renew his trading licence because he was trading with "enemy" states Lebanon and Syria, frustrating both Abbasi's business and the Arab and Israeli readers he has helped interest in each other's literary traditions. "How can the People of the Book be against books?" Abbasi asked, evoking the Jewish Bible as the first monotheistic holy text. "Books are a bridge to peace between cultures." » Read more

Israel army buys self-destruct cluster bombs: radio ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP) September 29, 2008 - 8:00pm The Israeli army is equipping itself with self-destruct cluster bombs in order to lower the number of civilian victims of this type of weapon, used in the 2006 war in Lebanon, military radio said. The army has reduced its purchases of US made cluster bombs, instead buying Israel-made M-85 cluster bombs, which contain a mechanism to destroy themselves if they fail to explode immediately on impact, according to the report. Cluster munitions spread bomblets over a wide area from a single container. » Read more

Bahrain moots reconciliation body ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News September 30, 2008 - 8:00pm Sheikh Khaled al-Khalifa's comments in a newspaper interview clarified his speech to the UN this week calling for a Mid-East body "without exception". Bahrain has no formal ties with Israel, but the sheikh said it did not matter. "Let them all sit together in one group... This is the only path to solve our problems," Sheikh Khaled said. "Why don't we all sit together even if we have differences and even if we don't recognise each other?" he was quoted saying by al-Hayat newspaper. Correspondents say few Arab governments are likely to accept a permanent regional forum with Israel. » Read more

Israeli Rights Watchdog Sets Up Shop in Washington ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Nathan Guttman - September 28, 2008 - 8:00pm A new and unusual player is joining the Israel advocacy scene in the nation?s capital. B?Tselem, Israel?s leading human rights watchdog organization, launched its Washington operation September 24, aiming to spread information regarding Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians to the crowd of Capitol Hill policymakers and Middle East think tanks, and to the American Jewish community. » Read more

Why Israeli settlers are lashing out ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Ilene Prusher - September 29, 2008 - 8:00pm When Yaron Ezrahi was a young political science professor in 1983, his star student was Emil Grunzweig, who had just completed his thesis on free speech. Two days later, Mr. Grunzweig was killed at a peace rally here, when a right-wing activist threw a hand grenade into a crowd of people demonstrating against Israel's involvement in the war in Lebanon. » Read more