January 11th

Strains emerge between Netanyahu, foreign minister
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Aron Heller - January 11, 2011 - 1:00am


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuked his combative foreign minister on Tuesday for attacking members of the Israeli leader's Likud party, pointing to growing strains within Israel's coalition government. In a rambling press conference, Avigdor Lieberman criticized Likud leaders for opposing an initiative to investigate Israeli human rights groups critical of the government. He said it was a "strange spectacle" to see Likud members protecting groups that he described as "terrorist collaborators."


UPDATE 1-UN's Ban "deplores" Israel demolition of hotel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Louis Charbonneau - January 10, 2011 - 1:00am


The U.N. chief "deplores" Israel's demolition of the Shepherd Hotel in East Jerusalem and said it only served to heighten tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, a U.N. spokesman said on Monday. The Shepherd Hotel, torn down as part of a settlement project first announced in 2009, was declared "absentee property" by Israel after it captured and annexed East Jerusalem. Israel views all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.


US not convinced on settlements-Palestinian envoy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Louis Charbonneau - January 10, 2011 - 1:00am


The Palestinian U.N. envoy said on Monday that his and other U.N. delegations have yet to persuade Washington to support a Security Council push to condemn Israeli settlement work, but they will keep trying. Riyad Mansour, the permanent Palestinian observer to the United Nations, said that an initial draft resolution that condemns and calls for a halt to all West Bank settlements was delivered to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council in December.


Guest Post: A Capital For One State, or Two?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Council On Foreign Relations
(Blog) January 10, 2011 - 1:00am


The Shepherd Hotel, partially bulldozed yesterday by private Israeli builders, is located just a few hundred yards from what had been my Jerusalem office until a few months ago. For the past several years, while I was based there working for the Quartet, I would pass the fenced off property daily thinking that the slightly dilapidated structure, built in the 1930s, must have once been elegant and grand. It has been fenced off and unused while its fate was being fought out in the Israeli judicial system.


Israel hotel demolition escalates fight for East Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Christa Case Bryant - January 10, 2011 - 1:00am


The demolition of an East Jerusalem hotel to make way for Jewish homes in a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood has sparked concerns from Europe to Egypt, which suggested a new intifada could break out as a result. The Shepherd Hotel project will bring only 20 Jewish homes to Sheikh Jarrah, but it is at the forefront of a broader, intensely controversial Jewish campaign to establish a foothold in Arab neighborhoods circling the heart of Jerusalem.


Five controversial Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Ariel Zirulnick - January 11, 2011 - 1:00am


In 2000, then-President Bill Clinton suggested that one of the thorniest issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the division of Jerusalem to create two capitals for two states – should be decided along demographic lines. In other words, Jewish neighborhoods would be incorporated into Israel and Arab neighborhoods would become part of the future Palestinian state.


ISRAEL: Poor diplomacy strikes foreign relations
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Batsheva Sobelman - (Blog) January 10, 2011 - 1:00am


Israel's foreign relations are suffering these days from an outbreak of poor diplomacy. Not necessarily bad; just poor. Foreign Ministry employees say they are just that, poor. Their basic salaries have been devalued by about 40% since last being updated in the early 1990s, and many of them rely on help from welfare services, say activists from the ministry workers' union.


Bulldozers begin work for Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Joel Greenberg - January 10, 2011 - 1:00am


Bulldozers began tearing down a former hotel building Sunday to make way for a Jewish housing development in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, pushing ahead with a contentious project that has raised concerns in Washington. The work drew a rebuke from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and sharp condemnation from Palestinian officials, further souring the diplomatic atmosphere as the Obama administration works to sustain peace efforts despite a breakdown of direct talks in a dispute over Israeli building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.


Clinton asks Arabs to oppose Iran nukes, support Palestinian government
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
January 10, 2011 - 1:00am


Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton lobbied Arab governments on Monday to help tighten the screws on their Iranian neighbors, saying that sanctions and other measures are hurting Tehran and undermining its ability to acquire components for its nuclear program. Clinton, in the Middle East for four days of talks, also pushed oil-rich Persian Gulf states to do more to back fragile governments in the West Bank and Iraq to create stability in a region that has so frequently veered into war.


Netanyahu rejects Clinton criticism
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Joel Greenberg - January 11, 2011 - 1:00am


Rebuffing U.S. criticism of a new housing project for Jews in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office said Monday that the project was a private initiative in which the government "was not involved." Bulldozers tore down a wing of the former Shepherd Hotel on Sunday to make way for the project. That drew a rebuke from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said the action undermined peace efforts.



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