November 18th

Who Will Write Jerusalem's Story? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post by Ronit Avni - (Opinion) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am While Jerusalem has always received its fair share of attention at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, too often it is treated as an idealized symbol rather than a real place. In debates surrounding the future of the city, religious proclamations and lines on maps overshadow the needs and interests of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis who live, work and raise their families in the city. » Read more

Palestinian insistence is key ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times by Ahmad Majdoubeh - (Opinion) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am Israel can be expected to be hostile to the Palestinian UN bid for statehood. The present Israeli government is not only not serious about peace, deliberately seeks to subvert all peace efforts and abort any attempts at arriving at Palestinian statehood, be it through negotiations or through the UN Security Council. » Read more

Right of return, but not in my backyard ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Marcus Sheff - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am On a recent afternoon in Nablus, during the Id al-Adha Muslim holiday, a group of Palestinian men sat down to a conversation in an office suite. As traffic honked and rattled in the streets of this bustling West Bank city, the discussion ranged from the relative popularity of Fatah and Hamas to the man most likely to succeed Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian president. » Read more

Left’s revenge will come ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Yair Lapid - (Opinion) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am Imagine that we are in the year 2013, and the Left is in power. The first thing it will do is pass the “Law for protecting IDF officers and soldiers,” whereby the army would immediately evacuate any community whose residents abuse IDF soldiers. When the Right would furiously claim that the law’s only purpose is to prompt settlement evacuation in Judea and Samaria, Leftist Knesset members will show puzzlement while playing dumb, saying that this is not a leftist law – after all, leftists who reside in settlements will also be evacuated should they dare abuse IDF troops. » Read more

Left’s revenge will come ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Yair Lapid - (Opinion) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am Imagine that we are in the year 2013, and the Left is in power. The first thing it will do is pass the “Law for protecting IDF officers and soldiers,” whereby the army would immediately evacuate any community whose residents abuse IDF soldiers. When the Right would furiously claim that the law’s only purpose is to prompt settlement evacuation in Judea and Samaria, Leftist Knesset members will show puzzlement while playing dumb, saying that this is not a leftist law – after all, leftists who reside in settlements will also be evacuated should they dare abuse IDF troops. » Read more

Jerusalem & Babylon / Ultra-Orthodox need not protest Israel, they run it ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Anshel Pfeffer - (Opinion) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am Someone just woke up and discovered that women have been banished from advertising billboards throughout Jerusalem. Good morning! The Modesty Police has been ruling the streets for years and none of you have done anything about it. I am normally very skeptical of conspiracy theories, because that is what they are, theories, and because I have actually met some of the conspiracists. But even I sometimes wonder if a group of rabbis did not get together at some point at the end of the 1990s and hatch a plan to take over the state of Israel by legal and democratic means. » Read more

Rabin knew road to peace passed through the bank ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Nehemia Shtrasler - (Analysis) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am Last Saturday night, I went to the square. I do so every year, as part of my civic duty to salute the prime minister who was assassinated on the altar of peace. Everyone should devote at least one day a year to the frustrating thought that if the Shin Bet security service had done its job and arrested the murderer, we would today be living in a completely different reality - a much better one. » Read more

Attacks Target Palestinians In Israeli Towns ATFP World Press Roundup Article from National Public Radio (NPR) by Sheera Frenkel - (Analysis) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am In Israel, tensions are rising between Jews and Palestinian Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of the population. Over the past few months, several Arab sites have been vandalized by militant Jews who left graffiti such as "Death to Arabs." Locals blame activists from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. At a recent demonstration on a street corner in the central Israeli town of Jaffa, protesters chant in both Hebrew and Arabic. The crowd is made up of Jews and Palestinians angry over the attacks, which have rocked their community. » Read more

Palestinians' talks over unity government likely to succeed ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua by Adam Gonn - (Analysis) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am An agreement between Fatah and Hamas, Palestinians' rival parties, looks likely on the formation of a unity government with Fatah's flexibility on the future role of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the ruling body. Hamas, which established its own government in Gaza after routing out forces loyal to Fatah in 2007, has been opposed to Fayyad's playing any part in the unity government. » Read more

Fatah-Hamas meeting to focus on unified Palestinian vision ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat by Salah Jumaa - (Analysis) November 18, 2011 - 1:00am Nimr Hammad, the Palestinian president's political adviser, has asserted that President Mahmud Abbas will focus at next week’s meeting with Hamas chief Khalid Mishal on the need to have a unified political program for the next government for the sake of communicating effectively with the world and so as to have a unified Palestinian vision for dealing with the world and with political issues. Hammad believes that the division and different political stands between Hamas and Fatah and the absence of a unified vision toward the strategic issues serve Israel. » Read more