Palestinian-Israelis flock to West Bank for Eid ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency November 18, 2010 - 1:00am QALQILIYA (Ma’an) – The parks, zoo and playgrounds of northern West Bank cities Qalqiliya, Jenin and Tulkarem were overwhelmed with visitors from the Palestinian cities and towns in Israel over the Eid Al-Adha holiday, giving a boost to the local economy. The Qalqiliya Zoo reported a record 2,000 visitors on Wednesday, with visitors from Haifa, Kufr Kanna and other cities in the north of Israel, while Nazarenes, Jerusalemites and residents of Haifa filled the restaurants of Bethlehem and Ramallah in the central West Bank. » Read more

U.S. report highlights Israel’s religious freedoms violations ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) November 18, 2010 - 1:00am Government allocations favoring the Orthodox, extra legal protection to Jewish holy sites and Orthodox hegemony over life-cycle events are among Israel's religious freedom violations highlighted in a U.S. State Department report. » Read more

How one man turned Israel's Gaza blockade into a business opportunity ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Liam Stack - November 17, 2010 - 1:00am Cairo — At the end of an alley in Gaza City’s Tofah neighborhood, an industrial ghost town full of quiet factories and unused warehouses, sits the Ramlawy Plastics Company. The factory once hummed with the activity of 45 workers turning raw Israeli plastics into bags, storage containers, bottles, and pipes. Manager Ahmed Ramlawy says that in those days they made fat profit margins of 20 percent. » Read more

Hague's Guantanamo plea overshadows Middle East talks ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by David Usborne - November 18, 2010 - 1:00am A day after announcing it was to pay millions in tax-payers' money to compensate a group of 16 men who were detained and allegedly tortured by American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, the Government last night implored the US to free the last Briton remaining there. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, made the appeal during talks with the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in Washington. The issue has attracted a broad mix of reactions in the US, not all of them exactly in tune with the "special relationship" that the two countries insist they enjoy. » Read more

A village torn three ways braces for Israel's withdrawal ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times by Edmund Sanders - (Interview) November 17, 2010 - 1:00am Reporting from Jerusalem — The Israeli government Wednesday approved the withdrawal of troops from the northern part of an Arab village in a long-disputed region along the border with Lebanon. Israeli officials said the removal of troops from tiny Ghajar after four years of patrolling the area was approved "in principle" by the security Cabinet, a group of government ministers. The decision calls for Israel, which wants to keep Hezbollah militants out of Ghajar, to work out the details with the United Nations peacekeeping force already patrolling the border zone in southern Lebanon. » Read more

Israel should change course ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News by Hanan Ashrawi - (Opinion) November 18, 2010 - 1:00am The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a critical stage. For more than two decades, the two-state solution has been the basis of international efforts to make peace in the region. Yet the Israeli government's refusal to cease colony construction in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem will shortly render the creation of a territorially contiguous and viable Palestinian state impossible. » Read more

Israel Approves Withdrawal From Part of a Village on Lebanon Border ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Isabel Kershner - November 18, 2010 - 1:00am JERUSALEM — Israel’s inner cabinet approved a plan in principle on Wednesday to withdraw from the northern part of a village straddling the border with Lebanon, addressing an American concern and a longstanding point of contention between Israel and Lebanon. Related A United Nations line placed northern Ghajar in Lebanon. But the action was unlikely to ease American pressure on Israel regarding a new moratorium on construction in West Bank settlements that is intended to get Israeli-Palestinian peace talks back on track. » Read more