January 25th

Ambassador Vs. Ambassador: Is Obama Good For Israel? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Shmuel Rosner - January 25, 2008 - 6:21pm The debate surrounding Barack Obama's attitudes toward Israel refuses to calm down. On Wednesday, Obama sent a letter to the U.S. ambassador to the UN, calling upon him to make sure that any Security Council decision dealing with the events in Gaza will not be biased against Israel. But this did not yet convince all the doubters, Jewish and Israeli. Obama also has quite a few supporters in the Jewish community, but those opposing him are fairly vocal, and seem to be even more so as the campaign progresses. » Read more

Mary Dejevsky: The Town That Measures Life In 15-second Intervals ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by Mary Dejevsky - (Opinion) January 25, 2008 - 6:19pm You can tell almost as much about a country from the things they want you to see as the things they would prefer you didn't. And just now one of things Israel really wants the outside world to see is daily life as it is lived in the depressed southern town of Sderot. » Read more

Busting The Blockade ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist January 25, 2008 - 6:18pm UNDER the pressure of Israeli sanctions, Gaza this week blew a gasket. On January 23rd Palestinian militants blasted holes in the metal wall along the sealed Gaza-Egypt border. A bulldozer broadened the gaps. Tens or even hundreds of thousands of Palestinians poured through to buy fuel, food, spare parts and other supplies. Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, was annoyed but ordered his troops to let them in, saying they were “starving due to an Israeli siege”. » Read more

Israel Torn Over Relationship With Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bbc News by Martin Patience - January 25, 2008 - 6:17pm Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert delivered a keynote speech on Wednesday night presenting himself as an experienced leader in difficult times. But notably absent was any mention of the tens of thousands of Palestinians crossing from Gaza into Egypt after the militant group Hamas blew up sections of the border fence. Israel is closely monitoring the situation but is reluctant to use force to end the crisis, which would be likely to spark international condemnation. » Read more

Israel Considers Palestinian Proposal To Open Up Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Deutsche Presse Agentur January 25, 2008 - 6:16pm The Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was offered a glimmer of hope Thursday that Israel would ease its blockade of Gaza. He used a discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to call on Israel to open up "passages" to the territory which he proposed the authority should oversee which he said should be set up within days. The Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak replied that his government had stated its willingness to consider the passages » Read more

Gaza-egypt Border Breach Has Israel Re-thinking Strategy ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) by Roy Eitan - January 25, 2008 - 6:15pm The few hundred pounds of TNT that brought Rafah’s border wall tumbling down also has shaken Israel’s strategy of isolating Hamas. The Olmert government watched helplessly on Wednesday as the Islamist group, responding to Israel’s tightening of its blockade on the Gaza Strip, blew holes through the border wall between Gaza and Egypt, enabling tens of thousands of Palestinians to surge across the border and stock up on food, fuel and other provisions. » Read more

Politics-us: Neocons Shaken, But Not Deterred ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS) by Jim Lobe - January 25, 2008 - 6:14pm Almost exactly five years after it reached its zenith with the invasion of Iraq, the influence of neo-conservatives has waned sharply in Washington, as their nemeses, the "realists" in the national security bureaucracy, have increasingly asserted control over U.S. foreign policy. » Read more

The Agony Of Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Boston Globe (Editorial) January 25, 2008 - 6:13pm THE BREACHING early Wednesday of the barrier separating Gaza from the Egyptian side of the border town Rafah allowed an estimated 300,000 Gazans to seek staples and a brief experience of liberty outside their enclosed, suffocating strip of land. The highly publicized breakout of those Gazans also made it impossible to ignore the collective punishment being imposed on them by Israel's policy of closure and economic blockade. » Read more

Israel Sees Upside In Hole In Gaza Wall ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Ilene Prusher - January 25, 2008 - 6:13pm When Palestinians toppled a metal wall separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt Wednesday, many expected Israeli officials to howl over Egypt allowing Hamas "terrorists" to rearm. After all, a cornerstone of the current peace process was supposed to be isolating Gaza. But the Israeli response has been surprisingly muted. In fact, some Israeli officials see some advantage in the breach. » Read more

Tens Of Thousands More From Gaza Enter Egypt Seeking Consumer Goods ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Steven Erlanger - January 25, 2008 - 6:12pm Tens of thousands more Palestinians flooded across the breached border crossing from Gaza into Egypt on Thursday, and Egyptian merchants greeted them with a cornucopia of consumer goods and higher prices than on Wednesday, when Hamas militants toppled large sections of the fence. Many more Egyptian police officers were at various ruptures in the barrier at Rafah, more of them in riot gear and some using batons with small electric charges to keep the huge, pushing crowds in some form of order. » Read more