Australia expels Israeli diplomat over Mabhouh hit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 24, 2010 - 12:00am

Australia has expelled an Israeli diplomat after a probe revealed Israel was behind the forging of four Australian passports linked to the murder of a Hamas operative in Dubai, various media outlets reported Monday. Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told parliament that Israel's conduct was "not the actions of a friend," the British Broadcasting Corporation reported.

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Israel denies offering nuclear weapons to Apartheid South Africa
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
May 24, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel on Monday vehemently rejected claims in a British newspaper that it offered to sell nuclear warheads to Apartheid-era South Africa in 1975. "There exists no basis in reality for the claims published this morning by The Guardian that in 1975 Israel negotiated with South Africa the exchange of nuclear weapons," the president's office said in a statement.

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Hamas: We caught Egyptian spy in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ali Waked - May 24, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas' Interior Minister Fathi Hamad on Monday revealed that security forces recently arrested a senior Egyptian officer that infiltrated into the Gaza Strip in order to collect information on its residents and the Hamas government. Hamad added that the officer "was intending to perform other tasks," on which he did not elaborate.

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Babylon & Beyond
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Maher Abukhater - May 24, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas announced Monday its decision to boycott the municipal elections slated for the West Bank on July 17, citing the fact that holding elections at this time will only increase the Palestinian division. The Palestinian faction, which controls the Gaza Strip, also said that arrests and harassment of its West Bank members does not make it possible for it to participate in the elections.

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Did Israel offer to sell South Africa nuclear weapons?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Christa Case Bryant - May 24, 2010 - 12:00am

In an apparent blow to Israel’s policy of “nuclear ambiguity,” the Guardian newspaper in Britain today asserted that it had the first written proof of a robust Israeli nuclear weapons program that the country has never formally admitted to. Relying on South African documents released to American academic Sasha Polakow-Suransky, whose book "The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa" is coming out tomorrow, the Guardian said that Israel had offered nuclear weapons of three different sizes to apartheid South Africa in 1975.

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Israeli police recommend indicting FM Lieberman
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
May 24, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli police say the country's contentious foreign minister should be indicted on charges of trying to disrupt an investigation into his business dealings. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Monday that an investigation has shown Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman should be charged with breach of trust. This is the first in a long series of steps that could lead to an indictment. Lieberman, who is known for his blunt, hard-line pronouncements, has denied wrongdoing.

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No Worries, Israel Insists, Defense Drill Is Just a Drill
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - May 23, 2010 - 12:00am

As Israel embarked on a large-scale civil defense exercise on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to reassure Israelis and some jittery Arab neighbors that the nationwide drill was not meant to signal a deterioration in security or an imminent war. “This is a routine exercise that has been scheduled for some time,” Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. “I would like to make it clear that it is not the result of any exceptional security development. On the contrary, Israel aspires towards calm, stability and peace.”

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Gaza assailants vandalize UN summer camp
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Rizek Abdel Jawad - May 23, 2010 - 12:00am

Armed assailants in black masks burned and vandalized a U.N. summer camp site Sunday and left behind three bullets next to written death threats against U.N. officials — the latest escalation of tensions between Islamic extremists and U.N. representatives in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Also Sunday, a U.N. agency reported that three-quarters of the damage inflicted on Gaza by Israel's war against Hamas more than a year ago has not been repaired or rebuilt. The report warned that the international community is being increasingly sidelined in Gaza because of Israel's blockade of the territory.

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Settlement goods no longer sold in Italian grocery chains
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 22, 2010 - 12:00am

The Italian Coalition Against Carmel-Agrexco announced Saturday that two major Italian supermarket chains, COOP and Nordiconad, said they would suspend the sale of products from a settlement good exporter. Products from Agrexco, what the coalition calls a "principal exporter of produce from Israel and the illegal Israeli settlements" will be cleared from stores by the end of the month, the director of Nordiconad told the coalition.

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A state within temporary borders plus
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Shaul Mishal - May 21, 2010 - 12:00am

The latest American and Palestinian steps to promote a diplomatic agreement between Israel and the Palestinians confronts Israel with two bad alternatives. The first is conducting negotiations à la U.S. President Barack Obama, which repeats the model for a final-status solution and an end to the conflict that failed in the past decade. The second is Palestinian sovereignty that would be promoted by both Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank and the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.

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