July 18th

The Question of Barghouti: Is He a Mandela or an Arafat? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Time by Karl Vick - July 17, 2011 - 12:00am In France, Marwan Barghouti is called "the Palestinian Nelson Mandela," an imprisoned militant turned bookworm who talks of peace when he gets out. In the West Bank and Gaza, many call him the heir to Yasser Arafat, so popular that polls routinely show him winning the presidency of the Palestinian Authority, even while he remains behind bars. Israelis know him as a mass murderer, serving five life sentences for sending suicide bombers to a Tel Aviv fish market and a Jerusalem mall. » Read more

Special from Gaza: Factions vow imminent armed uprising ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Masry Al-Youm July 18, 2011 - 12:00am GAZA - Leading Islamic Jihad figure Khaled al-Batch is over fifty and has been a part of the Palestinian struggle for years. His organization is deemed a terrorist group not only by the United States and Israel, but also by the rest of the world. The senior official’s activity in the group hasn’t exactly discouraged such a label. He helped orchestrate a series of bombings in Israel that ravaged the country during the outbreak of the Second Intifada. And now Batch, sitting barefoot in his Gaza office, says he’s convinced the Third Palestinian Intifada will erupt in a matter of months. » Read more

Palestine must be recognised as a nation ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News (Editorial) July 18, 2011 - 12:00am It is right that Palestine goes to the United Nations and seeks international recognition as a sovereign state. This is something that should happen without questions and starting that process should not be included in the increasingly bizarre bargaining process between the Palestinians and the ruthless Netanyahu government. The so-called peace process has ground to a complete standstill, and neither the Israelis nor the US government is interested in restarting it. » Read more

Lone West Bank pair charged with stopping settler-Palestinian clashes ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Hugh Naylor - July 18, 2011 - 12:00am NABLUS // The job of heading off clashes between Palestinians and Jewish settlers on the outskirts of this venerable West Bank city falls to a small number of employees of the Palestinian Authority's housing and village affairs unit. Two, to be exact. For more than five years, Ghassan Doughlas and his assistant Khader Oweis have toiled to devise ways to support outlying Palestinian villages that bear the brunt of violence from neighbouring Jewish settlements. » Read more

Do not speak, do not resist - Israel rules out non-violence ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Jonathan Cook - (Opinion) July 18, 2011 - 12:00am It was an Arab legislator who made the most telling comment to the Israeli parliament last week as it passed the boycott law, which outlaws calls to boycott Israel or its settlements in the occupied territories. Ahmed Tibi asked: "What is a peace activist or Palestinian allowed to do to oppose the occupation? Is there anything you agree to?" The boycott law is the latest in a series of ever-more draconian laws being introduced by the far-right. The legislation's goal is to intimidate those Israelis who have yet to bow down before the majority-rule mob. » Read more

Jewish settlers are terrorising Palestinians, says Israeli general ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by Catrina Stewart - July 18, 2011 - 12:00am A senior Israeli army commander has warned that unchecked "Jewish terror" against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank threatens to plunge the territory into another conflict. In unusually outspoken comments, Major General Avi Mizrahi took aim at extremist Israeli settlers, and said the yeshiva, or religious seminary, in Yitzhar, one of the most radical Jewish strongholds in the West Bank, should be closed, calling it a source of terror against Palestinians. » Read more

Are women's rights on the Arab agenda? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Jack Khoury - July 18, 2011 - 12:00am Arab Israeli filmmaker Ibtisam Mara'ana spent Sunday going from one forum to another, giving extensive interviews about the murder of Maya Fares-Najm, whose body was found Friday in an open lot in Har Halutz in western Galilee. Mara'ana, a personal acquaintance of Maya, been acquainted with the family for several years and is close to Maya's sister, model Angelina Fares. Fares appeared in a film Mara'ana directed about the struggle against traditional society, after the model decided to enter the competition for Israel's beauty queen. » Read more

Rattling the Cage: Bring it on, National Camp ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Larry Derfner - (Opinion) July 16, 2011 - 12:00am As the late, great V.I. Lenin said, the worse things get, the better they get. (Or did Mao say that?) Anyway, it’s all good. The anti-boycott law, the Nakba law, the loyalty oath(s), the hometown ethnic purity law, the Cuban-missile-crisis reaction to the flotillas – that’s what we want to see. This week, the Knesset’s going to vote to summon left-wing NGOs for public interrogation? Can’t wait. » Read more

Arab MK stripped of further parliamentary privileges for role in Gaza flotilla ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Jonathan Lis - July 18, 2011 - 12:00am Israeli Arab MK Hanin Zuabi will be stripped of her right to address the Knesset and to participate in committee votes until the end of this parliamentary season, the Knesset Ethics Committee ruled on Monday. The decision to penalize Zuabi, a lawmaker from the Balad party, comes in the wake of her participation in the Gaza-bound flotilla last year. Zuabi, who sailed on the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, had already had certain parliamentary rights revoked by Knesset last July. Zuabi will still be allowed to vote in debates at the Knesset plenum, the ethics committee ruled Monday. » Read more

Israel: Support waning for Palestinian state bid ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman by Associated Press - July 18, 2011 - 12:00am Israel's deputy foreign minister says he believes international support for recognizing an independent Palestinian state at the U.N. this fall is waning. Danny Ayalon has been leading Israel's international lobbying effort against the Palestinians. He says he has met with representatives from dozens of countries, and he believes many are not going to vote with the Palestinians. With peace talks stalled, the Palestinians plan to ask U.N. member states to vote for recognition of an independent state. The vote is expected to be largely symbolic, but could isolate Israel. » Read more