ATFP News Roundup October 13, 2015

News:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday pardoned a military officer sentenced to a year in jail for criticizing him for attending the funeral of Israeli statesman Shimon Peres, an official said. (Reuters\Ma'an\Times of Israel)

Dore Gold resigns as director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. (Ha'aretz)

Thirty-nine U.S. Congressmen and Senators have urged a United Nations agency to oppose a resolution that diminishes Jewish and Christian ties to the Old City of Jerusalem. (JTA)

A Palestinian child was allegedly killed by Israeli forces on Wednesday evening in the southern Gaza Strip, while Israeli authorities denied responsibility in his death. (Ma'an)

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem faced criticism Thursday for its scheduled participation in a United Nations Security Council forum debate on Israeli settlements, where it says it will “lay out the reality of the occupation.” (Times of Israel)

Palestinians say they’ll go to court unless FIFA suspends settlement teams. (Ha'aretz)

The Israeli navy opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of the northern Gaza Stripon Thursday, locals said. (Ma'an)

Billionaire Saban advises Clinton to differentiate herself from Obama on Israel. (Ha'aretz)

Renewed bombing of rebel-held eastern Aleppo has killed more than 150 people this week, rescue workers said on Thursday, as the Syrian government steps up its Russian-backed offensive to take the whole city. (Reuters)

Britain and France are leading EU efforts to impose more sanctions on Syrians close to President Bashar al-Assad in response to the devastating bombing of Aleppo, diplomats said, signaling that Russians may eventually be added to the list. (Reuters)

Britain is looking at its military involvement in Syria but any action would need to be part of a coalition involving the United States and is not likely to happen soon, foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday. (Reuters)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Russian counterpart in Switzerland on Saturdayto discuss Syria, officials said on Wednesday, as a devastating bombing campaign of the city of Aleppo intensified. (Reuters)

The U.S. military launched cruise missile strikes on Thursday to knock out three coastal radar sites in areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi forces, retaliating after failed missile attacks this week on a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials said. (Reuters\New York Times)

Low crude prices and the war in Yemen have sent a shock through the kingdom’s budget and forced it to revise its social contract even as it seeks to diversify its businesses. (New York Times)

Commentary:

Adnan Abu Amer says Hamas' Interior Ministry in Gaza has appointed several new officials to top security positions, raising questions about its motives. (Al-Monitor)

Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman Al-Thani says the world must not stand by while the Assad regime massacres Syrian civilians and here is a plan. (New York Times)

Afshon Ostovar says the war won’t end until Assad’s most powerful backer has a seat at the table — and that isn’t Putin. (Foreign Policy)

Diana Moukalled looks at the White Helmets and the Syrian conflict. (Al Arabiya)

April Longley Alley says the bombing of a funeral has empowered the country's worst forces and could drag America into the fray. (Foreign Policy)

The Washington Post says if Saudi Arabia continues to target civilians in Yemen, the Obama administration should pull its support. (Washington Post)

ATFP News Roundup October 12, 2016

News:

A 20-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli forces Tuesday night during clashes that erupted in the town of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem just south of the Old City, amid ongoing violent police raids in the Jerusalem area. (Ma'an)

The Palestinian Authority decided that municipal councils that had resigned from office in order to run in local elections would return to their original offices until the recently postponed elections were resumed. (Ma'an)

Dozens of Palestinians were shot and injured by live ammunition or rubber-coated steel bullets in the town of al-Ram in the Jerusalem district of the occupied West Bank Wednesday morning.  (Ma'an)

Residents of the Palestinian refugee camp Khan al-Shih in war-torn Syria southwest of Damascus city held a protest Tuesday condemning the bombardment of the camp and threats of heavier siege conditions. (Ma'an)

Israeli forces announced a series of closures and heightened security operations throughout the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the larger Jerusalem district in anticipation of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, according to Israeli police. (Ma'an)

German politicians called on Wednesday for the 'hero refugees' who captured a fellow Syrian migrant suspected of planning a bomb attack on a Berlin airport to be honored with a prestigious award, describing them as a model of integration. (Reuters)

Pope Francis, in his strongest appeal to date on the conflict in Syria, on Wednesday called for an "immediate ceasefire" to allow for the evacuation of civilians. (Reuters)

Turkish troops will remain at a military camp in northern Iraq until Islamic State is driven out of the nearby city of Mosul, Turkey's deputy prime minister said on Wednesday, signaling no respite in a row with Baghdad over the deployment. (Reuters)

Islamic State militants have placed booby traps across the city of Mosul, dug tunnels and recruited children as spies in anticipation of an offensive to dislodge the jihadists from their Iraqi stronghold, Iraqis and U.S. officials said. (Reuters)

Turkey has fired hundreds of senior military staff serving at NATO in Europe and the United States following July's coup attempt, documents show, broadening a purge to include some of the armed forces' best-trained officials. (Reuters)

The United States is seeing growing indications that Iran-allied Houthi rebels, despite denials, were responsible for Sunday's attack on a Navy destroyer off the Yemen coast, U.S. officials told Reuters. (Reuters)

Commentary:

Akiva Eldar says if Israeli PM Netanyahu insists on defying the US president and building a new West Bank settlement, Barack Obama could respond by abstaining in a UN Security Council vote on Palestinian Statehood. (Al-Monitor)

Shlomi Eldar says Salafi groups have adopted the tactic of firing rockets at Israel in an attempt to weaken Hamas by pushing it into a military confrontation with Israel. (Al-Monitor)

Entsar Abu Jahal says earlier in September, the Palestine Trade Center announced the Palestine Exporter Award for 2016, a national recognition to promote an export culture among Palestinian firms, encourage diversification in exports and support access to new markets in a bid to achieve national economic development. (Al-Monitor)

Oliver Bullough says the Kremlin wants to bomb Aleppo into submission and impose peace via a local strongman, just like it did in Grozny a decade and a half ago. (New York Times)

Sulome Anderson says ISIS brutalizes women in the name of Islam — and it still has thousands of female slaves in its grasp. (Foreign Policy)

Rauf Baker puts a spotlight on the plight of the Syrian middle class, five years and counting into the civil war. (The National)

ATFP News Roundup October 12, 2016

News:

A 20-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli forces Tuesday night during clashes that erupted in the town of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem just south of the Old City, amid ongoing violent police raids in the Jerusalem area. (Ma'an)

The Palestinian Authority decided that municipal councils that had resigned from office in order to run in local elections would return to their original offices until the recently postponed elections were resumed. (Ma'an)

Dozens of Palestinians were shot and injured by live ammunition or rubber-coated steel bullets in the town of al-Ram in the Jerusalem district of the occupied West Bank Wednesday morning.  (Ma'an)

Residents of the Palestinian refugee camp Khan al-Shih in war-torn Syria southwest of Damascus city held a protest Tuesday condemning the bombardment of the camp and threats of heavier siege conditions. (Ma'an)

Israeli forces announced a series of closures and heightened security operations throughout the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the larger Jerusalem district in anticipation of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, according to Israeli police. (Ma'an)

German politicians called on Wednesday for the 'hero refugees' who captured a fellow Syrian migrant suspected of planning a bomb attack on a Berlin airport to be honored with a prestigious award, describing them as a model of integration. (Reuters)

Pope Francis, in his strongest appeal to date on the conflict in Syria, on Wednesday called for an "immediate ceasefire" to allow for the evacuation of civilians. (Reuters)

Turkish troops will remain at a military camp in northern Iraq until Islamic State is driven out of the nearby city of Mosul, Turkey's deputy prime minister said on Wednesday, signaling no respite in a row with Baghdad over the deployment. (Reuters)

Islamic State militants have placed booby traps across the city of Mosul, dug tunnels and recruited children as spies in anticipation of an offensive to dislodge the jihadists from their Iraqi stronghold, Iraqis and U.S. officials said. (Reuters)

Turkey has fired hundreds of senior military staff serving at NATO in Europe and the United States following July's coup attempt, documents show, broadening a purge to include some of the armed forces' best-trained officials. (Reuters)

The United States is seeing growing indications that Iran-allied Houthi rebels, despite denials, were responsible for Sunday's attack on a Navy destroyer off the Yemen coast, U.S. officials told Reuters. (Reuters)

Commentary:

Akiva Eldar says if Israeli PM Netanyahu insists on defying the US president and building a new West Bank settlement, Barack Obama could respond by abstaining in a UN Security Council vote on Palestinian Statehood. (Al-Monitor)

Shlomi Eldar says Salafi groups have adopted the tactic of firing rockets at Israel in an attempt to weaken Hamas by pushing it into a military confrontation with Israel. (Al-Monitor)

Entsar Abu Jahal says earlier in September, the Palestine Trade Center announced the Palestine Exporter Award for 2016, a national recognition to promote an export culture among Palestinian firms, encourage diversification in exports and support access to new markets in a bid to achieve national economic development. (Al-Monitor)

Oliver Bullough says the Kremlin wants to bomb Aleppo into submission and impose peace via a local strongman, just like it did in Grozny a decade and a half ago. (New York Times)

Sulome Anderson says ISIS brutalizes women in the name of Islam — and it still has thousands of female slaves in its grasp. (Foreign Policy)

Rauf Baker puts a spotlight on the plight of the Syrian middle class, five years and counting into the civil war. (The National)

ATFP News Roundup October 11, 2016

News:

PM Netanyahu tells Sec. Kerry he expects the U.S. won't advance UN resolution on Israeli-Palestinian conflict before Obama leaves office. (Ha'aretz)

A Palestinian resident of eastern Jerusalem has been arrested for planning terror attacks in the Jerusalem area. (JTA\Times of Israel)

Israeli forces raided the city of Nablus and demolished the home of Amjad Aliwi, who Israeli intelligence accused of being one of the masterminds of a shooting attack on Oct. 1, 2015, which left two Israeli settlers dead. (Ma'an)

Having criticized the government five months ago for its handling of security, the hard-liner Avigdor Lieberman has not done much to reshape Israeli policies. (New York Times)

A group of Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian family and damaged their car while they were picking olives on their private land south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank on Monday. (Ma'an)

Undercover Israeli forces detained eight Palestinian children from Aida refugee camp in the southern occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem. (Ma'an)

Whoever occupies the White House next, he or she will inherit one of the most complex and brutal crises in the world: the war in Syria. (AP)

Russian Pres. Putin will not come to Paris next week after declining to meet President Francois Hollande only for talks on Syria, a source in Hollande's office said, the latest deterioration in ties between Moscow and the West. (Reuters)

A senior British lawmaker has accused Russia of targeting civilians in Syria in the same way the Nazis behaved at Guernica during the Spanish civil war of the 1930s. (Reuters)

Turkey and Russia signed an agreement on Monday for the construction of a major undersea gas pipeline and vowed to seek common ground on the war in Syria, accelerating a normalization in ties nearly a year after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane. (Reuters)

Close allies and Arab powerhouses Egypt and Saudi Arabia are having their first public spat since Egyptian Pres. Sissi took office two years ago, a quarrel over Syria that points to a wider, but mostly muted, divergence in the handling by Cairo and Riyadh of regional issues. (AP)

The spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition helping the Iraqi military defended recent pronouncements that the operation to retake Mosul is imminent, saying the advanced warning gives civilians hope they will soon be liberated and encourages defections of extremist fighters. (AP)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country is determined to take part in a possible operation to recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul despite objections from Iraq, adding to tensions between the two neighbors. (AP)

The Islamic State is releasing fewer propaganda items and has shifted its message away from that of a well-run caliphate. (New York Times)

Yemen's Houthi movement launched a ballistic missile deep into Saudi Arabia and may have also fired on a U.S. warship, two days after an apparent Saudi-led air strike killed 140 mourners at a funeral attended by powerful tribal leaders. (Reuters)

Updated guidelines published by the U.S. Treasury Department ease restrictions on foreign companies attempting to do business with Iran in what is being called a “loosening of sanctions.” (JTA)

Commentary:

Ha'aretz says precisely because Israel wants to be a home for the Jewish people demands that its leaders show empathy for the impossible situation of the Arab minority. (Ha'aretz)

Ahmad Abu Amer interviews Hamas leader Ahmad Yousef. (Al-Monitor)

Ben Caspit says Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman seems to have realized that attacking Hamas targets in retaliation for rocket fire from rogue groups could damage the organization’s efforts to contain those elements. (Al-Monitor)

Entsar Abu Jahal says a heavy budget deficit — though lighter than those of other Palestinian universities — led Birzeit University to call for a tuition hike, sparking a protest movement by the student council that closed the school's gates for a month. (Al-Monitor)

Raphael Ahren says as Turtle Bay observes its first-ever Yom Kippur, Israel’s envoy discusses his effort to bring more Judaism to the UN, clandestine meetings with Arab officials, and concerns about Palestine-related moves at the Security Council. (Times of Israel)

The New York Times says President Obama must cut off military aid to Saudi Arabia unless it ends the carnage and returns to peace talks. (New York Times)

ATFP News Roundup October 10, 2016

News:

A Palestinian who was due to begin a prison term in Israel next week went on a shooting spreeon Sunday, killing a pedestrian and a police officer in Jerusalem before being shot dead by police, medical and law enforcement officials said. (Reuters\Washington Post\Times of Israel\Ha'aretz)

The U.S. State Department strongly condemned a terrorist attack in Jerusalem that left two people dead. (JTA)

Israeli PM Netanyahu reportedly told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a telephone call that settlers from the Amona outpost would be relocated to an authorized settlement only as a last resort. (JTA)

In the wake of a deadly shooting attack in Jerusalem on Sunday, Israeli forces carried out massive raids across different neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem, where they detained some 39 Palestinians, at least nine of whom were minors, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources. (Ma'an)

A senior Israeli government minister is due to visit Turkey this week in the first such trip since the Jewish state and Ankara normalized relations after a six-year crisis over Israel’s deadly storming of a Gaza-bound ship, an official said. (Times of Israel)

Israeli forces shot and lightly wounded an Associated Press photographer with a rubber-coated steel bullet while he was covering clashes in the occupied West Bank village of al-Ram on Sunday, the global news agency reported. (Ma'an)

A Palestinian man died after being accidentally electrocuted inside a smuggling tunnel between Egypt and the southern besieged Gaza Strip on Sunday. (Ma'an)

Israeli authorities sentenced Palestinian astrophysicist Imad Barghouthi to seven months in prison on Sunday, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society. (Ma'an)

Russia intends to establish a permanent naval base on the site of an existing facility it leases at the Syrian port of Tartus, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Pankov said on Monday, Russian news agencies reported. (Reuters)

Debate over the merits and risks of America’s role as a moral authority has raged for decades, from the war in Vietnam, to Iraq, and now to Syria. (New York Times)

France's foreign minister is calling on the International Criminal Court to investigate Russia for possible war crimes in Syria. (AP)

A Syrian man who came to Germany during a migrant influx into the country last year was arrested on Monday after a weekend manhunt on suspicion of planning an Islamist bomb attack, Saxony state police said. (Reuters)

Yemen's Houthi movement fired ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia, and the United States said a failed missile attack from Houthi-controlled areas targeted one of its warships, two days after an apparent Saudi-led air strike killed 140 Yemenis. (Reuters\New York Times)

An Arab coalition intercepted two missiles fired by Yemen's Houthi group at targets in Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Marib province on Sunday, Saudi Arabian official media reported. (Reuters)

AT&T’s partnership with an Iranian company suggests that promises President Hassan Rouhani made long ago of welcoming Western businesses may at last be coming true. (New York Times)

Commentary: 

Ahmad Abu Amer says Palestinians are not convinced by the Palestinian Authority's justifications for delaying a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity. (Al-Monitor)

Uri Savir says the late President Shimon Peres is irreplaceable, but one of three people — his son Chemi Peres, former Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi or former Chief of Staff Benny Gantz — could go on from where Peres left off. (Al-Monitor)

Shlomi Eldar says despite a boycott of late President Shimon Peres' funeral by Arab Knesset members, several Arab-Israeli regional council heads and mayors paid a condolence visit to his family, to wide public approval. (Al-Monitor)

Josh Rogin says Putin and Assad could face justice for war crimes in Syria. (Washington Post)

Hassan Hassan looks at the fragmentation of rebel groups around Aleppo. (The National)

James Traub looks at the mess Pres. Obama left behind in Iraq. (Foreign Policy)

ATFP News Roundup October 7, 2016

News:

UN Security Council to hold special meeting on Israeli settlements next week. (Ha'aretz)

Vice President Joe Biden said Shimon Peres’ legacy should be one of tolerance at a time of rising bigotry. (JTA/Times of Israel)

The 81-year-old Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, underwent an emergency heart procedure on Thursday after suffering exhaustion and chest pains, but was given a clean bill of health and quickly discharged from the hospital. (AP)

Israeli police escorted by Israel’s internal security agency Shin Bet, raided and closed several institutions in Nazareth and Um al-Fahem in northern Israel allegedly affiliated with the Islamic Movement, reportedly confiscating equipment and computers. (Ma'an)

Israeli forces closed all the stores in the village of Huwwara in the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus, and prevented residents from the town from passing through the Beita crossroads after Palestinians allegedly threw rocks at Israeli settler vehicles on the main road. (Ma'an)

Israeli naval forces opened live fire at Palestinian fishing boats of the coast of Gaza city on Friday, before detaining two Palestinian fishermen and confiscating their boat. (Ma'an)

Hundreds of supporters of Mohammed Dahlan, a dismissed leader of the Fatah movement in Gaza exiled from the occupied Palestinian territory, marched on Unknown Soldier square in central Gaza on Thursday and burned pictures of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. (Ma'an)

The British government’s Department for International Development has reportedly frozen part of its aid to the Palestinian Authority over concerns the aid was being used to fund salaries for convicted Palestinian terrorists. (Times of Israel)

Groups representing liberal streams of Judaism appealed to Israel's Supreme Court Thursday to force the government to implement its decision on equal prayer at a key Jewish holy site. (AP)

Rebels holed up in Aleppo can leave with their families if they lay down their arms, President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday, vowing to press on with the assault on Syria's largest city and recapture full control of the country. (Reuters)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Russia on Friday to use its influence with the Syrian government to end the devastating bombardment of Aleppo, as her government opened the door to possible sanctions against Russia for its role in the conflict. (Reuters)

In Lebanon, getting Syrian children in school a huge task. (Reuters)

Modern technology is used to reproduce artifacts that were destroyed in Iraq and Syria; the results are on display at the Colosseum in Rome. (New York Times)

Involving Shi'ite militias in an operation to drive Islamic State out of the Iraqi city of Mosul will not bring peace, Turkey's foreign minister said on Friday, adding that Turkish-trained forces should be involved. (Reuters)

Some former officials and aid groups worry that President Obama will begin a ground campaign in Iraq without a comprehensive plan for what happens afterward. (New York Times)

The implementation of a landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers is still fragile, the head of the U.N. agency that polices Iran's side of the deal has said, warning that small mistakes could have grave consequences. (Reuters)

Millions of Moroccans headed out to vote Friday, with worries about joblessness and extremism on their minds as they chose which party will lead their next government. (AP)

Commentary:

The New York Times says the latest Israeli settlement in the West Bank makes it more urgent for the United Nations to help forge a peace agreement with the Palestinians. (New York Times)

Akiva Eldar says American presidents have made historic speeches about the Middle East, and have delivered inspiring eulogies at the funerals of PM Rabin and Pres. Peres — but all that has not brought peace any closer. (Al-Monitor)

Ahmad Abu Amer says Palestinians are not convinced by the Palestinian Authority's (PA) justifications for delaying a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity. (Al-Monitor)

Adnan Abu Amer says Hamas might be issuing a document soon detailing its stances toward various aspects of the Palestinian cause, as well as its ties with local parties and foreign countries. (Al-Monitor)

Rasha Abou Jalal says Fatah’s Central Committee announced the holding of the movement’s seventh conference after a seven-year absence, which would help unite Fatah’s ranks and prepare it for any future elections. (Al-Monitor)

Raphael Ahren says while empathizing with Gazans during 2014 war, Antonio Guterres has mostly stayed mum on the Palestinian question. (Times of Israel)

Abdul Rahman Al Rashed says everyone wants to have the honor of defeating ISIS. There are high expectations as they are all confident that they will finally liberate Mosul, even if there are no estimates about the duration of the war and its human cost. (Al Arabiya)

ATFP News Roundup October 6, 2016

News:

The United States strongly condemned Israel's decision to advance a plan for a new settlement deep in the West Bank, the State Department said on Wednesday, saying it would damage prospects for a two-state solution. (Reuters)

The PLO slammed Israel’s decision to advance plans for the construction of a new settlement -- expected to be used to relocate the residents of the illegal Amona outpost, which the Supreme Court ordered to be demolished by the end of the year -- saying the move affirmed Israel’s “resolve to destroy the two-state solution.” (Ma'an)

An outpost on privately owned Palestinian land must be dismantled, Israel’s Supreme Court says, but residents and their supporters plan to resist. (New York Times)

Israel sends female naval cadets to stop women’s boat headed to Gaza. (Washington Post/Ma'an/JTA)

A West Bank hospital official says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will undergo a heart test after being hospitalized. (AP/Times of Israel)

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck Israel for the second day in a row. (JTA)

The new president of FIFA, the governing body of international soccer, said he would make finding a resolution to the conflict over West Bank Israeli soccer teams “a priority.” (JTA)

A court in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip sentenced a Palestinian woman to death by hanging on Wednesday, after she was convicted of premeditated murder. (Ma'an)

The union of employees of UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for providing services to some five million Palestinian refugees, announced a one-day strike on Wednesday in the besieged Gaza Strip, with only schools and health centers exempted, to protest a reduction of UNRWA services to refugees and employees. (Ma'an)

France is to launch a new push for United Nations backing for a ceasefire in Syria that would allow aid into the city of Aleppo after some of the heaviest bombing of the war. (Reuters)

Analysis of satellite imagery of a deadly attack on an aid convoy in Syria last month showed that it was an air strike, a U.N. expert said on Wednesday in remarks that were later toned down to say it was not a conclusive finding. (Reuters)

President Vladimir V. Putin, analysts say, is advancing goals in the Syrian conflict while President Obama is on the way out and his replacement is undetermined. (New York Times)

Syria's army will reduce air strikes and shelling on rebel-held eastern Aleppo on humanitarian grounds, it said on Wednesday, after mounting international criticism of it and Russia. (Reuters)

At least 20 Sunni tribal fighters were killed in an air strike south of Mosul early on Wednesdaywhen they were mistaken for Islamic State militants, Iraqi police said. (Reuters)

The widely anticipated ousting of the Islamic State group from its stronghold of Mosul in northern Iraq is likely to transform the extremist group into an even more dangerous force, a Canadian general who directs training of Iraqi security forces said Wednesday. (AP)

Commentary:

Adnan Abu Amer says Hamas might be issuing a document soon detailing its stances toward various aspects of the Palestinian cause, as well as its ties with local parties and foreign countries. (Al-Monitor)

Ahmad Abu Amer says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is under Egyptian pressure to achieve reconciliation with dismissed Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan, but it might push the president to agree on reconciliation talks with Hamas instead in Doha. (Al-Monitor)

Shlomi Eldar says Israel has been revoking the travel and import permits of Gaza merchants and importers, threatening the collapse of Gaza's economy. (Al-Monitor)

Ben Caspit says Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog keeps denying reports by which he is negotiating with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the possibility of joining the government. (Al-Monitor)

Khaled Diab explains why flotillas and protests threaten Israel more than rockets from Gaza. (Ha'aretz)

Ari Shavit says two speeches by Pres. Obama were more precise, on-point and moving than anything said by any center-left Israeli leader of the past generation. (Ha'aretz)

Samer Attar says in Aleppo, U.S. inaction green-lights war crimes. (Washington Post)

Nicholas Kristof looks at the blot on Obama’s legacy. (New York Times)

Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson say with the cease-fire collapsed and horrific violence in Aleppo, American intervention might seem tempting. It’s still a bad idea. (New York Times)

Mikah Zenko says neither of the presidential campaigns knows what their Syria policies actually mean. (Foreign Policy)

ATFP News Roundup October 5, 2016

News:

Israeli warplanes struck Hamas sites in the northern and southern Gaza Strip on Wednesdayafternoon, in the second such attack of the day after a rocket fired from the coastal enclave struck Sderot, according to Palestinian media. (Times of Israel)

The United Nations expressed its support for the PA’s decision to postpone municipal elections for four months with the intent of holding elections in the entirety of the occupied Palestinian territory, after a Supreme Court decision to exclude the Gaza Strip from elections was met with political backlash. (Ma'an/Times of Israel)

Hamas has rejected a decision announced by the PA to postpone municipal elections for four months with the intent of holding them in the entire occupied Palestinian territory, following backlash over a Supreme Court ruling to exclude the Gaza Strip from the elections altogether. (Ma'an)

A delegation from the world’s only permanent war crimes court is visiting Israel and the West Bank this week to “promote better understanding” about its work, the chief prosecutor saidWednesday. (Times of Israle)

The Gaza Strip’s electricity company announced that the Egyptian power lines feeding the southern part of the besieged enclave were back in operation after being disconnected due to damage. (Ma'an)

The Palestinian Ministry of Education warned hundreds of public school teachers that they could be fired if they go forward with plans to strike in protest over unmet demands over salary issues. (Ma'an)

A group of Israeli settlers’ children escorted by Israeli forces harrassed a Palestinian family harvesting olives in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Monday. (Ma'an)

Maj. Hanan Shwartz of the Menashe Brigade discusses Palestinian security cooperation, olive harvests and the round-the-clock effort to keep two West Bank cities calm. (Times of Israel)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday efforts to end Syria's war must continue despite Washington's decision to break off talks with Moscow over what he called its "irresponsible" support for President Bashar al-Assad. (Reuters/New York Times)

Syrian rebels said on Tuesday they had repelled an army offensive in southern Aleppo as Russian and Syrian warplanes pounded residential areas, while nations spoke of rebuilding a peace process the United States broke off this week. (Reuters/AP)

The United Nations human rights chief told Russia on Tuesday that air strikes on civilian targets in the Syrian city of Aleppo may amount to crimes against humanity which could be brought before the International Criminal Court. (Reuters)

Egypt's interior ministry said on Tuesday its forces had killed a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader, whom it described as responsible for the group's "armed wing", as well as his aide in a shootout overnight. (Reuters)

Yemen's Houthis toughened demands for the resumption of talks to end the 19-month-old civil war, saying President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi must go and an agreement must be reached on the presidency. (Reuters)

Saudi Arabia began naval war games including live fire exercises on Tuesday in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil route, official media reported, a move that coincides with heightened tensions with regional rival Iran. (Reuters)

The Washington Post reporter who was detained for more than 18 months in Iran after being accused of espionage has filed a federal lawsuit against the Iranian government. (AP)

Commentary:

David Ignatius says the Russians have made Syrian civilian suffering “a weapon of war.” (Washington Post)

Abdul Rahman Al Rashed says it’s historically proven that the Syrian regime responds to serious threats and not to verbal threats of the kind we have become used to hearing from the US secretary of state. (Al Arabiya)

Joyce Karam says Washington has continuously underestimated Russia’s determination to help Assad win even if it means turning Aleppo or Idlib or Douma to another Grozny. (Al Arabiya)