Israeli ex-soldier jailed for leaking secret papers ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Alertnet October 30, 2011 - 12:00am JERUSALEM, Oct 30 (Reuters) - An Israeli court sentenced a former soldier to four and a half years in prison on Sunday for leaking classified military documents to a newspaper, which later reported allegations of a policy to assassinate Palestinian militants. Anat Kamm, 24, was convicted in February of possessing and distributing secret information, after striking a plea bargain with Tel Aviv District Court, where judges agreed in exchange to drop more serious charges of harming state security. » Read more

Arab League says will look at UN bid alternatives ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency October 31, 2011 - 12:00am DOHA (AFP) -- Arab League foreign ministers said Sunday they would look into alternative action if their efforts fail to secure full Palestinian membership of the United Nations. "We support the Palestinian demand for full UN membership," ministers said in a statement after talks in Doha. But the Arab League agreed to form a "committee of experts to study legal and political alternatives." » Read more

Arab Rejection of ’47 Partition Plan Was Error, Palestinian Leader Says ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times October 28, 2011 - 12:00am The Palestinian president said Friday that the Arab world had erred in rejecting the United Nations’ 1947 plan to partition Palestine into a Palestinian and a Jewish state. The Palestinian and Arab refusal set off widespread fighting, then Arab militaries attacked Israel after it declared independence the following year, a war the Arab states lost. “It was our mistake,” the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, above, said in a rare interview on Israeli television. “It was an Arab mistake as a whole.” Referring to Israel, he added, “But do they punish us for this mistake for 64 years?”

Analysis: How Islamic Jihad is becoming a threat to Hamas ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Khaled Abu Toameh - October 31, 2011 - 12:00am Once Hamas was the second- largest armed group in the Gaza Strip, after the Palestinian Authority. With the help of Iran and Syria, Hamas became so strong that one day, in June 2007, its men managed to seize control over the entire Strip. In recent years, however, Hamas has found itself in the same position as the PA was back then. Now it’s the Islamic Jihad organization that has replaced Hamas as the second- largest armed group in the Gaza Strip. Today, it poses a serious challenge to the Hamas government. » Read more

Israel: A true ally in the Middle East ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times (Opinion) October 31, 2011 - 12:00am American leaders have traditionally explained the foundations of the U.S.-Israel relationship by citing shared democratic values and the moral responsibility America bears to protect the small nation-state of the Jewish people. Although accurate and essential, this characterization is incomplete because it fails to capture a third, crucial aspect: the many ways in which Israel advances U.S. national interests. » Read more

Israelis, Palestinians Deploy New Technology in Fighting ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line by David Rosenberg - October 30, 2011 - 12:00am The flare-up in fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza that left 10 dead before a ceasefire gradually took hold on Sunday was as much a showcase for military technology as it was a forceful statement of the two sides’ political agenda. Islamic Jihad, the biggest of the Gaza-based Palestinian movements responsible for the three-day barrage, showed off a multi-barreled rocket launcher mounted on a light truck, a weapon platform not seen to date in Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel put its Iron Dome anti-rocket network into use for the third time since it was unveiled in April. » Read more

Israel: A true ally in the Middle East ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times by Robert Blackwill, Walter B. Slocombe - (Opinion) October 31, 2011 - 12:00am American leaders have traditionally explained the foundations of the U.S.-Israel relationship by citing shared democratic values and the moral responsibility America bears to protect the small nation-state of the Jewish people. Although accurate and essential, this characterization is incomplete because it fails to capture a third, crucial aspect: the many ways in which Israel advances U.S. national interests. » Read more

Overnight airstrike brings Gaza deaths to 12 ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency October 31, 2011 - 12:00am GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Two militants were killed overnight Sunday as Israeli forces targeted the Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll in the coastal enclave to 12 since Saturday. Palestinian medical sources identified the victims as Yousif Rawhi Mahmoud Abu Abdu and Ali Abdullah al-Aqad, both from Khan Younis, south Gaza. Both victims were transferred to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. The Al-Ansar brigades, a military wing of the Al-Ahrar movement, said in a statement that the victims were fighters in the group. They vowed to retaliate for the deaths. » Read more

Tensions high a day after Gaza violence ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times by Batsheva Sobelman - October 30, 2011 - 12:00am Reporting from Jerusalem— The day after a series of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes killed nine militants in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli civilian in southern Israel, strikes Sunday appeared to thin out, though tensions remained high. After an early-morning barrage was launched at southern Israel on Sunday, Islamic Jihad announced it would accept an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire and hold its rocket fire while reserving the right to respond to any attacks from Israel. » Read more

After Attacks, Efforts to Restore Truce Between Israel and Groups in Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Isabel Kershner - October 30, 2011 - 12:00am JERUSALEM — Cross-border tensions between Israel and Gaza simmered on Sunday as Egyptian efforts to restore an informal cease-fire began to take effect after a deadly round of Israeli airstrikes and Palestinian rocket attacks on Saturday. The Israeli military fired on what it said was a terrorist squad in southern Gaza preparing to fire rockets at Israel on Sunday afternoon. Gaza security officials said one Palestinian militant was killed and another was seriously wounded. Both, it said, were members of the armed wing of the leftist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. » Read more