Peace Talks Must Resume, Clinton Says in Israel Visit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Jodi Rudoren - July 16, 2012 - 12:00am

Visiting Israel for the first time in nearly two years, with the Palestinian peace process seemingly on perpetual hold, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that “the status quo is unsustainable” and urged leaders from both sides back to negotiations.

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UNESCO chair at Gaza University angers Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Ian Deitch - July 12, 2012 - 12:00am

Israel has condemned UNESCO's decision to establish a chair at the Islamic University of Gaza, calling the institution "a breeding ground for terrorists." Israel's foreign ministry said Thursday that "(Palestinian militant group) Hamas uses Gaza University laboratories to develop and produce explosives and rockets and has even run a course on explosive making." Gaza militants often bomb southern Israel with mortars and rockets.

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Palestinians in last push for UN nod for Bethlehem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Karin Laub - June 27, 2012 - 12:00am

The Palestinians on Wednesday made a final push to have UNESCO recognize the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the Israeli-controlled West Bank as an endangered World Heritage site, despite misgivings by Christian denominations and a cool response from the U.N. agency.

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Negotiator: UN bid underway, US asked for delay
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
June 25, 2012 - 12:00am

PLO negotiator Muhammad Ishtayya said Monday that the US and other foreign nations were pressing the Palestinian leadership to suspend its campaign for membership of UN bodies until after the US presidential election. Ishtayya told the official PA radio Voice of Palestine that the leadership had initiated the process of obtaining a UN General Assembly resolution which recognizes a Palestinian state on borders prior to Israel's occupation in 1967. Palestinian officials have opened talks with Arab states and France to get the process started, he said.

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Palestine nominates birthplace of Jesus in controversial UNESCO World Heritage bid
Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In Foreign Policy - June 19, 2012 - 12:00am

Palestine, recognized last October as the 195th member state by the U.N. Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), recently launched its first initiative as a full-fledged government in the Paris-based agency, nominating the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem and a traditional pilgrimage route to be listed as an endangered site on the World Heritage List.

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PA advised against bid for Bethlehem church
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Tovah Lazaroff - June 15, 2012 - 12:00am

The secretariat of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has come out against a bid by the Palestinian Authority to use an emergency procedure to register Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity under the country of “Palestine” as a World Heritage site. “At the UN, where the General Assembly each year adopts more resolutions criticizing Israel than on the rest of the world combined, this is a spectacle as rare as Halley’s Comet,” UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said.

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Israel seeks to block listing church in 'Palestine'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Tovah Lazaroff - June 13, 2012 - 12:00am

Israel is working to block a bid by the Palestinian Authority to register the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem under the country of Palestine, when the World Heritage Committee meets in Russia from June 24 to July 6. Earlier this month the committee announced that the church, as well as the nearby pilgrimage route, is among 36 sites which it plans to debate during that meeting. The debate marks the first time that the committee has considered registering a World Heritage site under Palestine.

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Israel: Ties to U.N. Rights Council Cut
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
March 27, 2012 - 12:00am

Israel suspended its working relations with the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday and will prevent a United Nations team from entering Israel or the West Bank for a planned investigation of Jewish settlements, the Foreign Ministry said. Israel accuses the council of having an anti-Israel bias. Israeli leaders were angered by the council’s adoption of a resolution last week that condemned settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and by its plans for a fact-finding mission to investigate the settlements.


The legal case against attacking Iran
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Bruce Ackerman - (Opinion) March 5, 2012 - 1:00am

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington has provoked a broad debate over the military and political wisdom of an attack on Iran. But so far, there has been little attention to the legal issues involved, which are crucial. American support for a preemptive strike would be a violation of both international law and the U.S. Constitution.

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Palestinian Leadership Lobbies for UN Resolution Against Jewish Settlement
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
February 29, 2012 - 1:00am

RAMALLAH, Feb. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian leadership has started lobbying for a United Nations resolution against the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a Palestinian official said Wednesday. "The regional and international efforts aim at mustering as much as possible support to the draft resolution," said Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian peace negotiator.

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