Israel, Palestine and the mapping of power
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Tristram Hunt - February 4, 2013 - 1:00am

'It's almost comical. The idea of maps is to represent reality; here it represents fantasy." So Professor Bruce Wexler of Yale University comments on how the vast majority of maps in Palestinian and Israeli schoolbooks omit the existence of the other entity.

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Hamas Pushes Islamization of Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor
by Abeer Ayyoub - (Opinion) February 4, 2013 - 1:00am

When Muhammad, who refused to give his family name out of security concerns, asked the DJ at his brother’s wedding in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, to play music for slow dancing, the DJ refused on the grounds that he would be punished by the authorities. Bemused, Muhammad warned the DJ that the family wouldn't continue the wedding if he didn’t play the song. The DJ shrugged off the threat and stood by his refusal. “We were really angry, because we were never informed that the slow dance wasn’t allowed,” Muhammad said.

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Palestinian Education Methods Require Revamp
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor
by Rana B Baker - (Editorial) February 4, 2013 - 1:00am

According to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics, the illiteracy rate in Gaza and the West Bank for persons aged 15 years and over was 4.7% in 2011; this is an average of 4.5% in Gaza and 4.9% in the West Bank. Illiteracy rates have been dropping since 1995, signaling an improvement in both the standard of living, and governmental support among other factors. In fact, literacy rates in the Palestinian Territories are among the highest in the world.

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Textbook study faults Israelis and Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Diaa Hadid - February 4, 2013 - 1:00am

  Both Israeli and Palestinian schoolbooks largely present one-sided narratives of the conflict between the two peoples and tend to ignore the existence of the other side, but rarely resort to demonization, a U.S. State Department-funded study released Monday said. The study by Israeli, Palestinian and American researchers, billed as setting a new scientific standard, tackled a fraught issue — Israeli claims that Palestinians teach hatred of Israel and glorify violence in schoolbooks.

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Israelis unhappy with study of their textbooks and Palestinians’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Joel Greenberg - February 4, 2013 - 1:00am

  A State Department-funded study released Monday on the contentious issue of how Israelis and Palestinians depict each other in textbooks says both are locked into narratives that portray the other side as the enemy and erase it from maps, yet do not dehumanize each other.

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Fayyad Welcomes the International Report on School Books, Calls on Israel to Cease Attempts to Detract from the Report’s Professionalism
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from
by Salam Fayyad - (Blog) February 4, 2013 - 1:00am

  Prime Minister Salam Fayyad expresses his satisfaction with a main finding of a study initiated by the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land in 2009, that confirms that Palestinian textbooks do not contain any form of blatant incitement, which is based on contempt towards the ‘other’.

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Dancing in Ramallah
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Diana Atallah - February 3, 2013 - 1:00am

  They're dancing the night away, here of all places. While it might be normal to see men offering to buy women at the bar a drink, that hasn't always been the case in this city, where such establishments were once shut down during the second intifada and remain controversial among Palestinians.

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Gazans decry chronic blackouts at fire victims' funeral
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
February 1, 2013 - 1:00am

Outrage and grief prevailed at the funeral of six family members killed at home by fire predawn Thursday in eastern Gaza City in a fatal accident that occurred due to chronic blackouts.

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Official: Abbas to convene PLO reform summit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 1, 2013 - 1:00am

An independent politician said Thursday that President Abbas will convene a summit of the PLO reform committee next Friday in Cairo. The leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad will participate in the summit along with other parties, Yasser al-Wadiyeh, head of a coalition of independents, he said. The committee to restructure the PLO was formed in the wake of a May 2011 reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas that was never implemented.

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Yair Lapid: An Interview with Israel’s New Power Broker
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Time
by Karl Vick - (Interview) January 31, 2013 - 1:00am

Yair Lapid is the Israeli anchorman and columnist who stunned Israel’s political world by finishing second in Jan.

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