May 10th

New Hamas force in Gaza is foiling rocket attacks against Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Avi Issacharoff - May 10, 2012 - 12:00am The Hamas government in Gaza has been operating a force over the past few months whose sole task is to prevent the firing of rockets into Israel. Hamas, which has always championed jihad against Israel, is now using its authority to foil the firing efforts of cells from other organizations such as the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees. » Read more

Settler leaders knew homes were built on private Palestinian land, says Ulpana developer ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Chaim Levinson - May 10, 2012 - 12:00am Settler leaders knew from the start that Beit El's Ulpana neighborhood was built partly on privately owned Palestinian land, police documents reveal, even though residents claim they bought the houses in good faith. Yoel Tsur, CEO of the company that built the neighborhood and owns 24 of the 30 houses that the High Court of Justice has ordered razed, admitted in a police interrogation three years ago that it was built on land whose purchase was never finalized. » Read more

UN's oldest refugee camps look at sensitive upgrades ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Noah Browning - May 10, 2012 - 12:00am BETHLEHEM (Reuters) -- Three generations of Palestinians displaced by the founding of Israel in 1948 know only life in UN refugee camps, going to schools beneath the blue-and-white UN flag and drawing their food stocks from UN warehouses. For these Palestinians whose long-cherished goal is the right of return to the lands they lost 64 years ago, the camps must be seen as temporary no matter how permanent they might seem to others. » Read more

Settler group patrols West Bank for demolition targets ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency by Charlotte Alfred - May 10, 2012 - 12:00am BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A tiny village of Palestinian families in the southern West Bank has had an unwelcome visitor in recent months. “He comes with small weapons and his camera, sometimes with armed forces, sometimes with settlers,” Susiya resident Nasser Nawaja says. The armed visitor is Ovad Arad, the Judea and Samaria Director of Regavim, an Israeli non-governmental organization. » Read more

UN's Ban urges Israel to charge prisoners or free them ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency May 10, 2012 - 12:00am BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday urged Israel to either charge or release Palestinian detainees "without delay." Ban expressed concern for Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in protest over their detention without charge and stressed "the importance of averting any further deterioration in their condition," in a statement issued through his spokesman Martin Nesirky. » Read more

Palestinian leadership expects Egyptian efforts to resolve hunger strike ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua May 10, 2012 - 12:00am RAMALLAH, May 10 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian leadership expects that the Egyptian efforts will soon succeed in reaching a settlement between Israel and hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners, a Palestinian official said Thursday. "We have positive signs that the results of these efforts will be seen by Saturday," said Ziad Abu Ein of the Palestinian Prisoners' Affairs Ministry. He refused to elaborate. » Read more

Model West Bank City Loses a Crime Fighter ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Jodi Rudoren - May 9, 2012 - 12:00am JENIN, West Bank — Relaxing in their rooftop salon one recent night, Amal Qadoura headed to fetch ice cream for herself and her husband when the shooting began. First, she recalled, two bullets were fired at one side of the glass-enclosed porch, followed by a barrage from a hilltop on the other side. » Read more

May 9th

A Peace Legacy for Netanyahu’s Hard-Line Dad? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bloomberg by Jeffrey Goldberg - (Opinion) April 30, 2012 - 12:00am The historian Benzion Netanyahu, who died today at 102, was sometimes asked to explain the miracle of Jewish survival through millenniums of persecution. Netanyahu -- the father of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin -- would answer the question in a way his interlocutors did not at all expect. » Read more

A Few Good Lawyers ATFP World Press Roundup Article from International Herald Tribune by Rajah Shehadeh - (Blog) April 27, 2012 - 12:00am BILIN, West Bank — Earlier this month, I finally watched “The Law in These Parts,” a documentary by the Israeli film director Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, at the 7th International Conference for Popular Resistance. The film describes the legal system that Israel has applied in the Palestinian Occupied Territories since 1967, and it does so exclusively through interviews with members of the Israeli military legal corps who wrote and implemented the system. » Read more

Response to Rashid Khalidi ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Gil Troy - (Opinion) April 30, 2012 - 12:00am Professor Khalidi is anxious to bar me from the debate about the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem’s building site that adjoins an ancient Moslem graveyard by questioning my credentials. And I guess he is right.  » Read more