The disabled Palestinian standup helping refugees find their funny side
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Rachel Shabi - October 27, 2009 - 12:00am

"I am officially the most oppressed person in the world," Maysoon Zayid recently told an audience in California. "I'm a Palestinian Muslim with cerebral palsy." Zayid, the first female standup ever to perform in Palestine and Jordan, added that her shaking often caught the eye of airport security staff, who think: "That chick's nervous!" It's a situation not helped by the fact her dad likes to drop her off – and he looks like Saddam Hussein.

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Along Gaza, a Quiet (but Still Tense) Life
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - October 8, 2009 - 12:00am

At the last stop of the artists’ tour through this hazardous semi-desert, Yaron Bob fashions roses out of pieces of Qassam rockets fired out of Gaza at residents in the area. Mr. Bob repeatedly heats a metal band sawed from a rocket until it glows orange and pounds it with a hammer, working it into a slim stem and petals. He chose to make roses, he said, because he was “looking for a new symbol of peace, and an answer to death.”

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Netanyahu finally agrees to Sarkozy request to rebuild Gaza hospital
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - September 30, 2009 - 12:00am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally agreed Tuesday to a request by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to rebuild a Gaza hospital damaged during Operation Cast Lead. Netanyahu told Sarkozy by phone Tuesday that he had decided to approve the project as a humanitarian gesture. The premier also said he wished to accommodate Paris due to the "strident stance that France has taken on Iran's nuclear program." Sarkozy made the request during Netanyahu's visit to Paris earlier this year. The hospital in question is Al-Quds Hospital, which is managed by the Red Crescent Society in Gaza.

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Violence between Palestinians, Israelis may spread
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by Xu Gang, David Harris - September 30, 2009 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Violence between Palestinian Muslim prayers and Israeli troops and Jewish worshippers on Sunday at the holy site of al-Haram al-Sharif in East Jerusalem, or known as Temple Mount to the Jews, may spread in the near future, analysts said.

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Israel ramps up efforts to block Hamas fund-raising network
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Anshel Pfeffer - September 29, 2009 - 12:00am

The defense establishment recently relaunched its campaign with its Western partners to block Hamas' fund-raising network, Haaretz has learned. The government, meanwhile, is considering launching an awareness campaign to highlight the link between fund-raising for Palestinian causes and terror funding. Israeli efforts have had some success in recent years, when Western governments forced certain charity organizations to reveal their records and sever ties with the Charity Coalition, the umbrella organization for groups that raise funds for Hamas abroad.

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Middle East peace effort's missing key: female negotiators.
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Rachel Brown - (Opinion) September 15, 2009 - 12:00am

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and representatives of the MiddleEast Quartet debate whether evictions of Palestinian families are a barrier or catalyst to a two-state solution, Israeli and Palestinian women alike confront the realities of the conflict on the ground. These women work toward a sustainable peace as committee members, as demonstrators, and as mothers raising and educating their children despite occupation. But their representation in formal negotiations is inadequate.

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Israel rekindles its African ties
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Will Ross - September 2, 2009 - 12:00am

Avigdor Liberman begins his trip in Ethiopia, where he will be accompanied by 20 business people. Officials say the trip is about building business links with Africa and also countering the influence of Iran on the continent. Israel hopes closer ties with Africa will help at the UN where African countries often vote in blocks. Ethiopia has strong links with Israel. During the 1980s and 90s tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel to resettle in what they considered to be their homeland.

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On the ground in Gaza, hopes for peace still flicker
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Antony Loewenstein - August 26, 2009 - 12:00am

Kamal Awaja lost his son in the recent Gaza war. He claims that Israeli soldiers murdered his child in front of his eyes before shooting his wife and himself in the leg, chest and arm. Today he lives with his large family in a tent in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, trying to provide a sense of normality for his children by tending a vegetable patch and constructing a small, plastic swimming pool.

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Gaza schoolgirls say Hamas cracking down on dress code
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 24, 2009 - 12:00am

Responding to multiple reports on Sunday that the de facto government was cracking down on dress in Gaza's schools, Hamas on Monday denied making any recent policy changes on uniforms or expulsions. A spokesman for the Hamas-run Education Ministry in Gaza, Khaled Radi, reiterated that his office had not received instructions from the de facto government imposing conservative dress codes on schoolgirls.

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Human Rights Watch gets it
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) August 21, 2009 - 12:00am

In the past week, the respected watchdog organisation Human Rights Watch issued two reports criticising Hamas and Israel for violating the rules of war. While such accusations are not new, they remind us of a critical missing element in the decades-old attempts to negotiate a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict: By what rules are both sides judged and held accountable?

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