January 12th

Israeli troops destroy Palestinian school in West Bank ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua January 12, 2011 - 1:00am Israeli troops on Wednesday destroyed a Palestinian school in Hebron city in southern West Bank, saying it was an illegal construction, Palestinian witnesses said. The witnesses said that Israeli troops besieged the school and forced teachers and students out before they demolished it. The makeshift school was built six years ago from metal sheets. Nine teachers educate some 50 students in the school. » Read more

Clinton: Women can be force for Mideast peace ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press by Matthew Lee - (Opinion) January 12, 2011 - 1:00am Women can be a major power in convincing Mideast leaders to agree to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace deal, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday as she urged regional leaders to embrace the rising expectations of their skyrocketing youth populations. At a town hall meeting with civic leaders in the capital of Oman, Clinton said calls from women on both sides of the conflict in Northern Ireland had contributed to a resolution and suggested that a meeting of minds between Arab and Israeli women could provide a similar impetus for peace. » Read more

Jerusalem Palestinians taking Israeli citizenship ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press by Daniel Estrin - January 12, 2011 - 1:00am Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem are increasingly lining up to request Israeli citizenship. But this is no embrace of the Jewish state. Instead, it seems to reflect waning hopes that peace talks will achieve a Palestinian state and fears that the Israeli separation barrier snaking around east Jerusalem could one day lock them out of the city. » Read more

Israel rabbi: Gentile sperm risks 'barbaric' offspring ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency January 12, 2011 - 1:00am A Jewish woman should never get pregnant using sperm donated by a non-Jewish man – even if it is the last option available, a senior Israeli authority on Jewish law has asserted. According to Rabbi Dov Lior of the Religious Zionism movement, a baby born through such an insemination will have the "negative genetic traits that characterize non-Jews," Israeli media reported Wednesday. » Read more

Israel razes Nablus outpost ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency January 12, 2011 - 1:00am Israeli authorities demolished on Wednesday an illegal settlement outpost adjacent to a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, officials said. Calls to Israel’s Civil Administration were not immediately returned, but onlookers said bulldozers dismantled the “Yesh Dam” outpost near Qusra, a Palestinian village south of Nablus. Two busloads of soldiers were seen deployed in the village late Tuesday ahead of the demolition which removed a cement structure, agriculture buildings, and tents. » Read more

Israeli warplanes in fresh strikes on Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency January 12, 2011 - 1:00am The Israeli air force resumed overnight its recent series of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of the consequences if Palestinian rocket fire continued. The first air strikes on the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis killed a militant of the Islamic Jihad and wounded another man, Palestinian sources said. The Israeli military confirmed the attack, saying it had targeted a member of Islamic Jihad who "was involved in planning a massive terrorist attack in the heart of Israel." » Read more

Why the demise of the Middle East ‘peace process’ may be a good thing ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Alastair Crooke - January 11, 2011 - 1:00am Establishing a Palestinian state has been a sine qua non of Western foreign policy for the last 20 years. For some, the evident demise of the “peace process” has given rise to a sense of bereavement nearly on par with the end of civilization. A Palestinian state, for many, was a banner of conscience, a matter of justice. It was perceived, too, as the essential remedy for the wider maladies of the Middle East. Its final exhaustion would seem to edge the region closer to an abyss. » Read more

Why Palestinians want to be Israeli citizens ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Jackson Diehl - January 12, 2011 - 1:00am One of the givens of the Middle East peace process is that Palestinians are eager to be free of rule by Israel and to live in a state of their own. That's why a new poll of the Arabs of East Jerusalem is striking: It shows that more of those people actually would prefer to be citizens of Israel than of a Palestinian state. » Read more

Israel: Airstrike in Gaza Kills a Militant ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Isabel Kershner - January 11, 2011 - 1:00am A Palestinian militant from the group Islamic Jihad was killed in Gaza on Tuesday in an Israeli airstrike, according to the Israeli military and the group. The military said in a statement that the target of the strike, Muhammad Najar, 23, was “involved in planning a massive terror attack in the heart of Israel,” and that the pinpoint killing had disrupted those plans. Islamic Jihad threatened to avenge the Israeli attack.

January 11th

Palestinian Authority Urging Gaza Fatah Exiles to Return Home ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line by David Miller - January 10, 2011 - 1:00am The Palestinian Authority is quietly encouraging officials from its ruling Fatah party who fled the Gaza Strip following the rival Hamas movement’s bloody takeover in 2007 to return home. “Hamas and Fatah are both present in the Gaza Strip, and I support all Fatah people returning,” Hussam Khadr, a Fatah leader from Nablus, told The Media Line. "The party leadership should be brave and force people who left without a justified reason to return." » Read more