October 12th

When Palestinian jail hurts more than Israeli incarceration ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Alex Lavac, Gideon Levy - (Opinion) October 12, 2012 - 12:00am He was waiting for us at the entrance to his handsome and well-appointed stone house, atop the hill on which the homes of Jenin refugee camp residents are perched. Skinnier than ever - he lost seven kilograms in hunger strikes - Zakaria Zubeidi, the "cat with nine lives," was finally released on bail after being detained for five months in the Palestinian Authority's Jericho prison without trial. He was indicted on suspicion of taking part in a shooting attack on Jenin Governor Kadura Musa last May. » Read more

Jerusalem-born thinker Meron Benvenisti has a message for Israelis: Stop whining ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Ari Shavit - (Interview) October 11, 2012 - 12:00am Meron Benvenisti was my first editor. At the beginning of the 1980s, Ariel Sharon established more than 100 settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. At the beginning of the 1980s, Meron Benvenisti founded a Jerusalem-based information center to monitor the settlements Sharon established. At the beginning of the 1980s, I was a very young, very enthusiastic young volunteer in Peace Now, which thought ‏(rightly‏) that the settlements Sharon was establishing and that Benvenisti was monitoring were going to lead Israel to perdition. » Read more

Why did we wait so long? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Adi Schwartz - (Opinion) October 12, 2012 - 12:00am The government initiative to put the history of Jews of Arab countries - along with the circumstances under which they came to Israel - on the public agenda has aroused anger and opposition. Palestinian dignitaries, among them Hanan Ashrawi and MK Ahmed Tibi, claim that raising this issue is an outrage. They have been joined in the pages of this newspaper by Gideon Levy ("How many homelands do the Israelis get to have?" September 20 ) and Yifat Bitton ("Another way to discriminate against Mizrahim," Hebrew edition, September 20). » Read more

Discrimination against Arab women ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz (Editorial) October 11, 2012 - 12:00am The rate of workforce participation among Arab women is only 28 percent, compared to 80 percent for nonreligious Jewish women. The barriers preventing Arab women from looking for work are many, but one of the main ones is their exclusion from the job market. That is what emerges from an analysis published this week by Prof. Eran Yashiv of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies, based on new unemployment data generated by changes in how the Central Bureau of Statistics conducts its employment survey. » Read more

Occupation Tourism ATFP World Press Roundup Article from International Herald Tribune by Shmuel Rosner - (Blog) October 11, 2012 - 12:00am MOUNT GERIZIM, West Bank — Last week, with family in tow, I took the day off to go on an organized tour of the West Bank. The trip started in Peduel, a Jewish settlement half an hour from central Tel Aviv. It’s a scenic spot. Ariel Sharon used to call it “the balcony of Israel”: located on top of a mountain in the Samaria region, Peduel reveals below the big cities of Israel that lie near the Mediterranean shore. » Read more

‘Holy Jihad’ is the only way to deal with Israel, says Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood chief ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Times of Israel by Elhanan Miller - October 11, 2012 - 12:00am Egypt’s foremost Muslim Brotherhood official called on the Arab world Thursday to replace negotiations with Israel with “holy Jihad,” claiming that if Jews are allowed to pray on the Temple Mount they will destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and supplant it with the third temple. » Read more

Gaza's precious space and the cost of real estate ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News by Jon Donnison - October 11, 2012 - 12:00am On a horse and cart winding his way through his olive grove, sun-kissed in the early evening autumn sunshine, I meet Hamed Talba. A policeman by trade, Hamed has recently become a man of the land. He's not really cut out as a farmer, striking something of an urbane figure. But this was an investment and it has proved very lucrative. "I bought this plot for $90,000 (£56,000) in 2010," he tells me as he shows me round his land on the outskirts of Gaza City. » Read more

Rare twist as Palestinians, Israeli settlers cooperate ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP) October 12, 2012 - 12:00am Saed's village, Khirbet Zakariya, is in a part of the West Bank under full Israeli administrative and security control. As a Palestinian, he cannot build without Israeli permission, which is often extremely difficult to secure. "Settlers came to visit the village three years ago and were surprised when they saw how little housing there was," he told AFP. » Read more

Rights groups: Protect Palestinian olive trees ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Tovah Lazaroff - October 12, 2012 - 12:00am Five human rights groups on Thursday penned an urgent letter to the IDF and the police urging security forces to do more to protect Palestinian olive trees in the West Bank. Although the olive harvest only began on Wednesday, there have been a high number of vandalism incidents this week starting on Sunday, said B’Tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli. Her organization – along with Rabbis for Human Rights, Yesh Din, Association of Civil Rights in Israel and Hamoked – plan to send their letter to the security forces in the coming days. » Read more

Israel Police to set up 'Jewish terror' unit in West Bank ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Chaim Levinson - October 11, 2012 - 12:00am A new department in the Judea and Samaria District Police will be formed to deal with Jewish terrorists, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided on Wednesday. This unit is set to play a key role in the fight against attacks perpetrated by right-wing ideologues in the West Bank. » Read more