Take a tour of the West Bank – through Palestinian eyes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Mya Guarnieri - January 15, 2010 - 1:00am

Banners strung from lampposts across Jerusalem welcome the winter participants of Birthright, a programme that brings college-aged Jews, most of whom are American, to Israel for a free 10-day tour. Funded by wealthy Jewish philanthropists and the Israeli government, the trip takes participants to sites that have historical importance to Jews, such as the Western Wall, in hopes of strengthening their connection to Israel.

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Palestinians Bid to Join International Finance Body
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Benjamin Joffe-Walt - January 5, 2010 - 1:00am

The Palestinian Authority is forming a "national team" to drive the bid to gain membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), it was announced on Monday. The team, approved during Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's weekly cabinet meeting in Ramallah, will lead efforts to reform Palestinian economic institutions as part of the campaign to gain permanent observer status and eventually membership in the international trade body.

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Jews raise voices for brutalised Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Linda S. Heard - January 5, 2010 - 1:00am

Last week in Cairo, Hedy Epstein, a frail 85-year-old American woman, embarked on a hunger strike for the first time in her life to protest the ongoing blockade of Gaza. She has no idea how her body will hold up, she says, but that isn't her priority. She is one of more than 1,300 international participants from 42 countries who flew to Cairo with the aim of participating in the Gaza Freedom March, initially planned to coincide with the first anniversary of Israel's Operation Cast Lead.

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Why I back Israel sanctions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Udi Aloni - (Opinion) January 5, 2010 - 1:00am

I find it appropriate that the Israeli public be notified of the emerging movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel (BDS), which has been growing at a breathtaking pace. Following bewildered reports published by Yedioth Ahronoth journalist Sever Plocker, who noticed that BDS has moved from the circles of the radical western Left to the circles of the bourgeois centre, I can add that this is now true for Israel-loving Jews as well.

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Almost irreversible
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - January 4, 2010 - 1:00am

The first decade of the twenty-first century, which ended a few days ago, witnessed the undoing of all the positive milestones and achievements that had occurred in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process in the last decade of the twentieth century. That decade started with the first international peace conference in Madrid. This was followed by the first Arab-Israel multilateral and bilateral negotiations, which ended with the signing of the first Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, the Oslo Accords.

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Jerusalem should be at the center of peace efforts
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Daoud Kuttab - January 4, 2010 - 1:00am

The first decade of the twenty-first century has been a disastrous one for Palestinians. Negotiations efforts were dealt a dramatic blow, historic leaders and potential leaders were killed, assassinated or imprisoned and, worst of all, the scourge of internal strife returned to Palestinians in the form of the destructive Hamas-Fateh division.

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Egypt’s Steel Wall Sparks ‘Fatwa War’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Rachelle Kliger - January 3, 2010 - 1:00am

A religious ruling in support of the construction of a massive steel wall on the Egypt-Gaza border is drawing fire from fellow clerics. The steel wall intended to stop smuggling across the Egypt-Gaza border was declared permissible in a religious ruling, or fatwa, by the Islamic Studies College of the renowned Al-Azhar institution, drawing angry responses from other Muslim figures in Egypt, including from within Al-Azhar itself.

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Q&A: ''Israeli Settlements Killing Two-Nation Solution''
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Jerrold Kessel, Pierre Klochendler - (Interview) January 1, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM, Dec 30 (IPS) - In the absence of any progress towards peace between Israelis and Palestinians, leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) are adopting a reasonable approach as a way of building up international pressure on Israel to get it back to the negotiating table.

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Rattling the Cage: A taboo question for Israelis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Larry Derfner - (Opinion) December 31, 2009 - 1:00am

There's a question we Israelis won't ask ourselves about the Palestinians, especially not about Gaza. The question is taboo. Not only won't anyone ask it out loud, but very, very few people will dare ask it in the privacy of their own minds. However, I think it's time we start asking it, privately and in public. If we don't, I think there's going to be Operation Cast Lead II, then Operation Cast Lead III, and each one is going to be worse than the last, and the consequences for Palestinians and Israelis are going to be unimaginable.

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Cruel onslaught on Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Linda Heard - (Opinion) December 30, 2009 - 1:00am

Sunday, the 27th of December, marked one year since Israel’s military launched Operation Cast Lead that robbed the lives of more than 1,400 Palestinians including 318 children, leaving 5,300 wounded. The cruel onslaught on Gaza that relentlessly continued until Jan. 18, 2009, destroyed United Nations facilities, hospitals, schools, ministerial buildings and 3,500 houses, leaving 20,000 homeless.

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