The impunity of Israel and its allies will carry a price
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Seumas Milne - (Opinion) December 17, 2009 - 1:00am

When evidence of war crimes is produced, you might expect states that claim to defend the rule of law to want those crimes investigated and the perpetrators held to account. Not a bit of it. The decision by a London judge to issue a warrant for the arrest of Israel's former foreign minister Tzipi Livni over evidence of serious breaches of the laws of war in Gaza has sparked official outrage in Britain.

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Enough of blaming the Goldstone Report!
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) December 16, 2009 - 1:00am

A brief news item in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) a few days ago made depressing reading. It was entitled: “State Department blames Goldstone for stalled peace talks.” “Wow!” I thought to myself, has it really come down to this? The United States and Israel, who do not hesitate to toot their horn about their democratic credentials, now blame the stalled Arab-Israeli peace process on Judge Richard Goldstone, the main author of a report on potential war crimes during the Gaza war that was issued last September by the United Nations Human Rights Council inquiry commission?

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West Bank Is Tense After Arson at Mosque
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Passions ran high on Sunday in this Palestinian village in the northern West Bank two days after arsonists, presumed by Palestinians and many Israelis to be Jewish extremists, set fire to the central mosque. A delegation of Jewish religious leaders and activists, including some from West Bank settlements, tried to reach the village to express their abhorrence of the attack. But the Israeli Army prevented the group from entering Yasuf for security reasons as enraged villagers proclaimed that the visitors would not be welcome.

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Gaza one year on: The aftermath of a tragedy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
(Opinion) December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Hilmi Samouni still hopes at some point – "inshallah" – to go back to his old job as a kitchen assistant in the Palmyra, Gaza City's best known shwarma restaurant. But unlike his 22-year-old brother Khamiz, who is working once again in a car paint shop, and his 20-year-old cousin Mousa, on a two-year accountancy diploma course at Al Azhar University, Hilmi, who is 26, found that he couldn't cope when he returned to the Palmyra after the war.

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Israeli forces kill Israeli man at Gaza border
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 7, 2009 - 1:00am

Israeli forces shot and killed an Israeli citizen near a Gaza border crossing overnight, an official said. An Israeli military spokeswoman told Ma'an that forces opened fire at the man, a civilian in his 30s, as he attempted to enter northern Gaza near the Erez crossing early Monday. The spokeswoman added that when Defense Ministry guards identified seeing the man they first fired warning shots but ultimately targeted him when he failed to respond. The forces aimed at his lower body, she said.

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Israel air strikes in Gaza: Will Hamas rocket truce hold?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Erin Cunningham - November 23, 2009 - 1:00am

Israeli warplanes carried out air strikes against targets across the Gaza Strip Sunday morning, just one day after Hamas announced it had reached an agreement with all Gaza-based militant factions to halt rocket fire into the Jewish state.

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Israeli bombs follow Palestinian rockets
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
November 23, 2009 - 1:00am

Israeli aircraft attacked two suspected weapons-making factories and a smuggling tunnel in the Gaza Strip early Sunday in what the military said was retaliation for Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel. The airstrikes wounded at least seven people, including one seriously, and came despite an announcement by Gaza's Hamas rulers that the territory's military factions had agreed to stop firing rockets. The Hamas announcement came late Saturday, after the rocket attack.

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A Mideast Truce
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Roger Cohen - (Opinion) November 16, 2009 - 1:00am

I’ve grown so pessimistic about Israel-Palestine that I find myself agreeing with Israel’s hard-line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman: “Anyone who says that within the next few years an agreement can be reached ending the conflict simply doesn’t understand the situation and spreads delusions.” That’s the lesson of early Obama. The president tried to rekindle peace talks by confronting Israel on settlements, coaxing Palestinians to resume negotiations, and reaching out to the Muslim world. The effort has failed.

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Controversy over draft UN resolution on Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
November 4, 2009 - 1:00am

The UN General Assembly is likely to vote in support of a UN report alleging war crimes in Gaza on Wednesday, but experts say that, if not properly worded, the resolution could close off options for further action on the matter.

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U.S. House backs resolution to condemn Goldstone Gaza report
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Natasha Mozgovaya, Barak Ravid - November 4, 2009 - 1:00am

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday condemned a UN report that accuses Israeli forces and Palestinian militants of committing war crimes in Gaza early this year as irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy. With a 344-36 vote, the House passed a nonbinding resolution that urged President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to oppose unequivocally any endorsement of the report. Twenty-two representatives voted present.

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