Hamas: Death sentence for drug dealers
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ali Waked - September 19, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas approved a law permitting the death sentence for drug dealers and up to seven years behind bars for drug users, thereby stepping up its war on drugs in the Gaza Strip. Ministry of the Interior spokesman Ihab al-Rasin said Sunday that Hamas had in fact adopted an Egyptian law. Al-Rasin, speaking during a ceremony to mark the end of a three-month campaign against drugs, also accused Israel of "continuing its efforts to swamp the Strip with drugs."

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PA arrests Hamas men in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ali Waked - September 19, 2010 - 12:00am

Ynet also learned Sunday that the Palestinian Authority carried out many preemptive arrests over the weekend after Hamas threatened to avenge the assassination of Iyad abu Shilbayeh by Israel. Among the detainees were members of Islamic Jihad. The PA held several meetings following the murder in order to prepare for Hamas' supposed retaliation, for fear that such a move would be especially desirable for the Islamist group due to the direct talks between the Palestinians and Israel.

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Israeli army assassinates Hamas leader
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
September 17, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli forces entered the home of a Hamas leader in Tulkarem on Friday morning and shot him three times in the neck and chest before withdrawing, family members said. Medics at the Thabit Thabit Hospital in Tulkarem confirmed that 38-year-old Iyad As’ad Shelbaya, a known Hamas leader, was dead, killed by three bullets to the neck and chest. Shelbaya lived in the Nur Shams refugee camp east of Tulkarem. Security sources said he was assassinated during a raid on his home at 2:30 a.m. on Friday morning.

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Peace talks highlight internal tensions in Hamas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Ehud Yaari - (Analysis) September 17, 2010 - 12:00am

Unsurprisingly, the Hamas leadership – both in Gaza and Damascus, and less so in the West Bank – has greeted the resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian talks with a flood of contrarian rhetoric. Characterizing the process as a “sellout” of the Palestinian “cause,” the movement argues that President Mahmoud Abbas lacks the necessary “mandate” to represent his people. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal went so far as to call Abbas “a zero,” amid accusations of “treason” and “betrayal.”

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Hamas Isn't the IRA
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Slate
by Michael Weiss - September 17, 2010 - 12:00am

With the resumption of Arab-Israeli direct talks comes the regurgitation of a minority view that these talks are destined to fail because Hamas is excluded. The first salvo in this ongoing campaign came from Palestinian-American blogger Ali Abunimah, an advocate of the one-state solution, who expounded upon the need for recognizing Hamas in the New York Times. Peter Beinart made the same case in a broader Daily Beast column about Obama's failed foreign policy.

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Israeli-Palestinian peace talks under threat from Hamas. Can Syria help?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Nicholas Blanford - September 16, 2010 - 12:00am

With Gaza rocket fire and Israeli air strikes providing a potent reminder of Hamas's potential to destabilize Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, US envoy George Mitchell arrived in Syria today looking to secure broader regional support. While Syrian leaders have repeatedly expressed support for restarting peace talks with Israel, few expect an imminent breakthrough on that front. But where Syria could play a crucial role in the short term is in helping the US shore up the recently renewed Israeli-Palestinian talks.

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Abbas: No alternative to peace talks, we will continue efforts
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
September 16, 2010 - 12:00am

Offering a positive note after two days of inconclusive Mideast peace negotiations, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he sees no alternative to continuing the talks in search of a peace deal with Israel. "We all know there is no alternative to peace through negotiations, so we have no alternative other than to continue these efforts," Abbas said, speaking through an interpreter during a welcoming ceremony for visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

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Hamas stuck between peace talks and the IDF
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yaakov Katz - (Analysis) September 16, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas is on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand it has made a strategic decision to increase its terror attacks against Israel – 10 rockets were fired into Israel on Wednesday – in order to torpedo the peace talks between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. On the other hand, Hamas does not want to go too far with its attacks, to the point that Israel will feel compelled to send two IDF divisions into Gaza and carry out Operation Cast Lead II.

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Israel kills Palestinian in strike on Gaza tunnel, after day of rocket and mortar fire
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
September 15, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli aircraft bombed a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt on Wednesday, killing a Palestinian, witnesses said. The attack came hours after Gaza militants stepped up rocket and mortarfire on southern Israel, in an apparent attempt to scupper Middle East peace talks. Witnesses in the southern Gaza town of Rafah said the Israeli air strike killed a tunnel worker and wounded two other people. The Israeli army confirmed the attack.

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Israelis, Palestinians already broaching tough topics in talks, envoy says
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Glenn Kessler - September 15, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli and Palestinian leaders are delving very quickly into some of the most difficult issues dividing them, the U.S. special envoy to the region said in an unusually upbeat report Wednesday, even as Israeli fighters bombed a smuggling tunnel and Palestinian militants launched mortar rounds into southern Israel.

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