September 21st

Text messaging helps young Palestinians find work ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian by Rory McCarthy - September 21, 2009 - 12:00am A non-profit group in the occupied West Bank has started a scheme that uses mobile phone text messaging to help young Palestinians find work. The group, based in Ramallah, has already registered 8,000 Palestinians on its Souktel system, most of them recent graduates. The system connects them to about 150 leading employers who are looking for staff. Internet access in the West Bank remains low, reaching about one-third of the population. Most computer use is at internet cafes, which are largely male-dominated domains in what is still a conservative society. » Read more

Jerusalem Diary: Monday 21 September ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News by Tim Franks - September 21, 2009 - 12:00am It's one of the grandest geo-political entities of them all, every word capitalised … The Middle East Peace Process. But its current progress, or signal lack of it, has been hanging on something rather more lower case - whether Israel is prepared, for a few months, to stop giving out new permits for construction in West Bank settlements. Dani Dayan believes it's not so much mundane as barmy. He's the Chairman of the Settlers' Council. "Two pandemics are running wild all over the world," he says. "The first is swine flu, the second is 'settlement psychosis'." » Read more

IDF bombs Gaza smuggling tunnels ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews September 21, 2009 - 12:00am Air Force jets attacked three smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip late Sunday night, and hits were identified. The IDF Spokesperson's Office stated that the bombing was retaliation for the Qassam rocket fire from Gaza towards southern Israel Saturday night. The bombing was a conclusion to 24 hours of tension at the Gazan border. On Sunday afternoon two Palestinians were killed and four injured from IDF fire near the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya. » Read more

Avi Issacharoff / Tripartite summit or PR for Obama? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Avi Issacharoff - (Opinion) September 21, 2009 - 12:00am The tripartite summit Tuesday between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama is not likely to bring about a breakthrough or so much as a line for the final-status agreement. Both Israel and the PA have been emphasizing at every opportunity that the summit is not about negotiations, but merely a "preliminary meeting." » Read more

Akiva Eldar / A summit can be a very dangerous thing ATFP World Press Roundup Article from by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) September 21, 2009 - 12:00am The all-too-long history of the "peace process" has taught us that a summit can be a desirable goal, but also a place of unsurpassable danger. When participants come with insufficient preparation, and without a safety net, the depth of the fall can be as high as the summit itself. There is a great difference between a fruitless round of shuttle diplomacy between Jerusalem and Ramallah on the part of a presidential envoy and a failed summit called by U.S. President Barack Obama with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. » Read more

Aide: Netanyahu will defend settlement growth at Obama summit ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz September 21, 2009 - 12:00am Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will defend the expansion of West Bank settlements when he meets U.S. President Barack Obama and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday, the premier's spokesman said Monday. "You have never heard the prime minister say he would freeze settlement building. The opposite is true," Nir Hefetz told Army Radio when asked about the tripartite summit, which will take place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. » Read more

Israeli shelling leaves two dead in northern Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency September 21, 2009 - 12:00am Two men were killed and three others injured after Israel's military shelled targets in northern Gaza on Sunday evening, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources. The two slain Palestinians were later identified by medics as Abdel Hafez As-Silawi, 21, and Muhammad Nasir, also in his 20s. According to Dr Mu'awiyah Hassanein, the head of emergency and ambulance services in Gaza's Health Ministry, As-Silawi's body arrived at Kamal Adwan Hospital along with another three wounded, one critically. » Read more

Israel's Gaza Vindication ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Jackson Diehl - (Opinion) September 21, 2009 - 12:00am When it was launched last December, Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip looked to most people in Washington to be risky, counterproductive and doomed to futility. Not only pundits like me but senior officials of the Bush administration predicted that the Israeli army would not succeed either in toppling Gaza's Hamas government or in eliminating its capacity to launch missiles at Israeli cities. Instead it would subject the Jewish state to another tidal wave of international opprobrium and risk its relations with West Bank Palestinians and Egypt. » Read more

Settling for Failure in the Middle East ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Stephen Walt - (Opinion) September 20, 2009 - 12:00am Like so many of his predecessors, President Obama is quickly discovering that persuading Israel to change course is nearly impossible. » Read more

Can Hamas spoil Obama's three-way Mideast summit? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Joshua Mitnick - September 20, 2009 - 12:00am Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh slammed the Obama administration's plan to meet Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, saying that Palestinians will reject anything Mr. Abbas agrees to during discussions on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. His comments come one day after militants in Gaza fired two rockets into Israel and as a flare up in violence along the Gaza border left two militants dead. » Read more