June 10th

Israel’s weakness is an opportunity for peace ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National (Opinion) June 10, 2010 - 12:00am With all the intense scrutiny of Israel’s assault on the Freedom flotilla, yesterday’s meeting between the US president, Barack Obama, and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, will appear to many as an irrelevant sideshow. » Read more

Non-Arab states dictating the Arab political agenda ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Michael Young - (Opinion) June 10, 2010 - 12:00am All politics is local, the saying goes. But quite often the instruments are found abroad. The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has shown how well he understands this. Last week he used Israel’s cretinous overreaction to the humanitarian flotilla to Gaza to curry favour in the Arab world and burnish his bona fides at home. However, Mr Erdogan’s ability to play on Arab outrage represents a larger phenomenon, what we might call the “peripheralisation” of the Middle East. » Read more

Gaza's boys and girls come out to play ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by Donald MacIntyre - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am London 2012 it isn't. But on Sunday a relay of 50 schoolchildren bearing an Olympic-style torch will start from Deir el Balah Elementary Boy's School in central Gaza on the 17km road journey along the Mediterranean coast to the UN compound in Gaza City. There, they will light a flame, less to commemorate the notorious white phosphorus bombardment which razed the main warehouse here during Israel's military offensive in January 2009, than to herald the start of something altogether more cheerful: the fourth annual summer games. » Read more

IDF may give PA forces more control ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Yaakov Katz - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am The IDF has drawn up a list of potential confidence-building measures that Israel could make to the Palestinian Authority amid growing expectations in Jerusalem that Israel will face increasing pressure to make concessions, following PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Wednesday meeting with US President Barack Obama. Abbas and Obama met at the White House for talks that Israeli defense officials said would likely end with the president issuing a number of guarantees to the PA that would include future Israeli concessions. » Read more

Abbas tells U.S. Jews: I would never deny Jewish right to the land of Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Natasha Mozgovaya - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told U.S. Jewish leaders on Wednesday that he would never deny Jews their right to the land of Israel, according to participants of the two-hour roundtable discussion. Some 30 Jewish leaders from organizations such as AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations took part in the Washington meeting, which focused mainly on the indirect peace talks and violent incitements. » Read more

Foreign Ministry warned Israel Navy not to raid Gaza flotilla in international waters ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Barak Ravid - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am During the government's preparatory discussions over how to handle the Gaza-bound aid flotilla, the Foreign Ministry advised that Israel's security forces wait for the ships to reach the country's territorial waters - which lie within 20 miles from the coast - before launching a takeover operation. According to a senior official in Jerusalem, Foreign Ministry diplomats said that despite the legality of overtaking the ships in international waters, such an action would hamper Israel on the diplomatic and public relations front worldwide. » Read more

Israeli document: Gaza blockade isn't about security ATFP World Press Roundup Article from McClatchy News by Sheera Frenkel - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am As Israel ordered a slight easing of its blockade of the Gaza Strip Wednesday, McClatchy obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as "economic warfare" against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory. Israel imposed severe restrictions on Gaza in June 2007, after Hamas won elections and took control of the coastal enclave after winning elections there the previous year, and the government has long said that the aim of the blockade is to stem the flow of weapons to militants in Gaza. » Read more

Conflict with Palestinians damages Israeli economy ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua by David Harris - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am Israel's ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories is damaging the economy of the Jewish state, said a report published on Tuesday by the Adva Center for Information on Equality and Social Justice in Israel. The document, entitled the Cost of the Conflict, is the latest in a series of reports, which is published once every two years. Perhaps the main conclusion of its author, Adva's academic manager Shlomo Swirski, is that Israel's three-week military operation in and around the Gaza Strip 18 months ago cost the country dear. » Read more

Forging Palestinian unity tough task, even for Turkey ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Tom Perry - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am The prospect of Israel easing its blockade of Gaza has generated new pressure on Fatah and Hamas to end their feud, but the chances of the rival factions restoring Palestinian unity soon appear faint. Turkey, seeking to build on the kudos it has won among Arabs for challenging the blockade, has offered to mediate between the rivals and its prime minister has said the division must end. "For the peace in Palestine, it is necessary to overcome the problems between Fatah and Hamas," Tayyip Erdogan said this week. "There shouldn't be divisions anymore, there can't be." » Read more

Israel and Its Liberal 'Friends' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Wall Street Journal by Bret Stephens - (Opinion) June 10, 2010 - 12:00am Questions for liberals: What does it mean to be a friend of Israel? What does it mean to be a friend of the Palestinians? And should the same standards of friendship apply to Israelis and Palestinians alike, or is there a double standard here as well? » Read more