The return of the generals
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Uri Avnery - (Opinion) August 23, 2011 - 12:00am

Since the beginning of the conflict, the extremists of both sides have always played into each other's hands. The cooperation between them was always much more effective than the ties between the corresponding peace activists. This was proved again this week. At the beginning of the week, Binyamin Netanyahu was desperately looking for a way out of an escalating internal crisis. The social protest movement was gathering momentum and posing a growing danger to his government. The whole content of the public discourse had changed beyond recognition.

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Gaza factions agree ceasefire as overnight calm holds
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 22, 2011 - 12:00am

Reports of a Sunday evening ceasefire deal reached between factions in Gaza and Israel appeared to hold overnight Sunday, as residents paused for breath after four days of Israeli airstrikes. Israeli media and army reported that 12 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel overnight, with no injuries. But the cessation deal, described by a Hamas official as "informal", seemed to take Gaza residents safely through the night. No faction claimed rockets attacks after the deal was in place, around 9 p.m. Israel time, 8 p.m. in winter-saving time.

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Egypt and Israel Move to Halt Growth of Crisis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Stephen Farrell - August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

The Egyptian and Israeli governments moved Sunday to ease tensions over fatal cross-border attacks, apparently seeking to stop the crisis from flaring up into a full-scale diplomatic rift. An Israeli official confirmed that an Israeli military delegation arrived in Egypt on Sunday, quietly and unannounced, for behind-the-scenes talks with Egyptian officials, and a second Israeli official issued a public statement of regret for the deaths of Egyptian soldiers.

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Israel apologizes for Egyptian soldiers' deaths
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Jeffrey Fleishman, Edmund Sanders - August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

Eager to head off a diplomatic crisis with its most important peace partner, Israel apologized to Egypt on Saturday over the deaths of three Egyptian soldiers who were accidentally killed last week during an Israeli military incursion into the Sinai peninsula.

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Egypt sets new battle front in a war with its own Islamic hardliners
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Alastair Beach - August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

Perched high on a sandbank overlooking the slums of Gaza, a man who calls himself Abu Nafaq points to a block of canary-yellow flats just beyond the Egyptian border fence. "That is where the Israelis bombed a few days ago," he says, referring to the Israeli bombing raid in response to last week's ambush by terrorists in southern Israel. According to the Israelis, the gunmen who murdered eight people near the Red Sea resort town of Eilat came from Gaza – possibly sneaking out through the warren of smugglers' tunnels leading into the nearby Egyptian shantytown of Rafah.

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Rush to cover up bloodshed in Palestinian camp
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
by George Hale, Hannah Patchett - August 20, 2011 - 12:00am

Syrian forces scrambled Saturday to destroy evidence of last week's bloody crackdown in Latakia that killed dozens and sent Palestinian refugees fleeing, activists said as UN investigators arrived in Damascus. Security forces were seen scrubbing blood off the streets and walls of al-Ramel refugee camp ahead of the cross-agency mission’s anticipated arrival in the port city. The delegation was dispatched from Geneva in response to a damning report to the Security Council on Syrian leader Bashar Assad's "apparent shoot-to-kill" policy.

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Gaza-Israel violence escalates after deadly attack
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Globe and Mail
August 19, 2011 - 12:00am

Gaza militants launched barrages of rockets deep into Israel early Friday and Israeli aircraft struck targets in the Palestinian territory in the aftermath of the deadliest attack against Israelis in three years. Gunmen who appear to have originated in Gaza and crossed into southern Israel through the Egyptian desert ambushed civilian vehicles traveling on a remote road, killing eight people. Six were civilians, and two were members of Israeli security forces responding to the incursion.

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The myth of Israel's Goliath image has been slain
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) August 19, 2011 - 12:00am

The planning, time, place and methodology of the attacks in the south indicate that the intention was not just to kill Israelis, avenge Palestinian deaths, or speed up the end of occupation. Whoever sent the terrorists is no friend of President Mahmoud Abbas and his people, who are scurrying around trying to lobby support for a UN General Assembly vote for a Palestinian state next month.

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Deadly direction
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
(Editorial) August 19, 2011 - 12:00am

When attacks and counterattacks erupted Thursday in Gaza, it might have been expected to hear analysts and the media talk about a sudden outbreak of violence – in fact, the developments of the last few months represent an instance of deliberately laying the groundwork for such an explosion.

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Israelis Hit Gaza and Militants Fire Rockets After Deadly Attacks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner, David Kirkpatrick - August 19, 2011 - 12:00am

Israeli warplanes launched air strikes on Gaza and militants fired more than 10 rockets into Israel, the Israeli authorities said early Friday, a day after armed attackers, described by the authorities as Gazans who had crossed into Israel from Egypt, carried out multiple deadly attacks near the popular Red Sea resort of Eilat.

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