Will Hamas Make Bid For PLO Leadership?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor
by Geoffrey Aronson - (Opinion) January 31, 2013 - 1:00am

Khaled Meshaal has come a long way from the days when he would sit on a lonely hilltop next to his village of Silwad doing his grammer school homework. There is no solitude on that summit today. The Israeli settlement of Amona is a jumble of prefabricated dwellings surrounding a modern children's playground with a million-dollar view east to Jordan. Silwad sits in the shadow of the small settlement.

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Official: Abbas to convene PLO reform summit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
(Analysis) January 31, 2013 - 1:00am

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- 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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PA security official slams anti-corruption report as 'self-serving'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
January 31, 2013 - 1:00am

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) -- The spokesman of the Palestinian Authority security services Adnan Dmeiri on Thursday accused an international anti-corruption group of bias after it published a report on defense spending across the world. Transparency International issued the Government Defense Anti-Corruption Index this week, ranking Palestine in the third-highest band of risk of corruption, out of seven gradings.

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Palestinians face growing food crisis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
January 30, 2013 - 1:00am

Fluctuating prices, poverty and border restrictions mean growing numbers of Palestinians are facing food insecurity this year -- one of the key priorities in the humanitarian community’s annual appeal for the occupied Palestinian territory. This year’s Consolidated Appeal Process is for $401.6 million, a slight decrease on last year’s $416.7 million, only 68 percent of which was financed. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which helped coordinate the CAP, estimates that 1.3 million Palestinians do not have enough food.

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Alcohol serving restaurants set alight in Ramallah
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Nasouh Nazzal - January 30, 2013 - 1:00am

The Palestinian security apparatus has released a number of Palestinians accused of setting alight two restaurants which serve alcohol in Beir Zeit, a town north of Ramallah, for lack of evidence. Palestinian crowds gathered in front of the adjacent restaurants last weekend and threw stones at their windows, doors and signboards. Others set the two restaurants on fire and the crowds remained at the scene, watching until the two restaurants were totally gutted.

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Criticize Israel – but without the vile and offensive cartoons
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Rachel Shabi - (Opinion) January 30, 2013 - 1:00am

It’s a rare event for me to be in agreement with the U.K. Jewish Chronicle's editor, Stephen Pollard, but that is what happened after the publication of a cartoon by Gerald Scarfe in last weekend's London Sunday Times, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

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Why Arab Parties Are Excluded From Israeli Coalitions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
(Opinion) January 30, 2013 - 1:00am

The media reports out of Israel these days are all about coalition-wrangling. Will Benjamin Netanyahu reach the magical 61 Knesset seats necessary to form a government by combining his 31 Likud-Beiteinu seats and the 19 from Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid with those of ultra-Orthodox parties like Shas (11 seats) and United Torah Judaism (7), which might create new opportunities to advance the peace process but could stymie efforts to force ultra-Orthodox Jews to serve in the military?

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Palestinian fighter, rebel dies in Damascus
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Albert Aji - January 29, 2013 - 1:00am

A hard-line Palestinian military commander who rebelled against leader Yasser Arafat to form his own rival party died in Damascus on Tuesday, according to his representatives and hospital officials. Said Musa Maragha, better known by his nom de guerre, "Abu Musa," was 86. They said Maragha died of cancer. Maragha, a Jordanian of Palestinian descent, defected from the Jordanian army in 1970 over tensions between the military and Palestinian fighters who were using the kingdom as a base to carry out attacks against Israel.

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'Hamas leader Mashaal seeking presidency of PLO'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
January 29, 2013 - 1:00am

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal is seeking to take over the presidency of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, currently chaired by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the London-Based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported on Monday. According to the report, Mashaal's desire to chair the PLO is behind his decision not to stand for reelection to his position as chairman of Hamas's Political Bureau.

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Official: Gaza security to release detained journalists
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
January 28, 2013 - 1:00am

The public freedoms committee, a body set up to implement national reconciliation, has secured an agreement from Gaza's security services to free journalists recently detained in the coastal strip, a representative said Monday. The detention of six reporters in Gaza over two days last week raised concerns about a setback in the reconciliation process. As part of the 2011 deal, Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah-led government in the West Bank agreed to stop media harassment and politically-motivated arrests.

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