Israel reimposes ban on international journalists in Gaza, despite protests
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Steve Weizman - December 8, 2008 - 1:00am

Israeli defense officials have reinstated a ban on international journalists entering the Gaza Strip, despite protests from the heads of major news organizations and an appeal to the Supreme Court. After weeks of media protests, the ban was lifted Thursday, only to be re-imposed the following day as part of a wider closure of the Gaza border in response to Palestinian rocket attacks.

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Israel threatens 'no restraint' if Hamas keeps retaliating
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP)
December 8, 2008 - 1:00am

Israel threatened tougher action against rocket fire from the Gaza Strip on Sunday as the territory's sole power plant again shut down in the face of a crippling blockade. Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he has told security chiefs to draw up contingency plans for military action against militant groups in Gaza, although there have been no deaths as a result of the rocket and mortar fire of the past week - and Israel initiated the latest flare-up with a deadly invasion of the enclave in early November.

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In Gaza, No Cash for Holiday
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Linda Gradstein - December 8, 2008 - 1:00am

Every year, Ali Hussein, 35, looks forward to Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice, which begins Monday. He works for the police force and earns a good salary by Gazan standards, about $800 a month. Along with some friends, he buys a sheep every year, slaughters it and donates the meat to the poor. He buys new clothes and special sweets for his four young sons, and he gives his mother, sisters, nephews and nieces gifts of cash.

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Israel's West Bank system 'like apartheid'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP)
December 7, 2008 - 1:00am

ISRAEL'S discrimination between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank is increasingly reminiscent of white South Africa's apartheid system, an Israeli human rights group said. Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territory "have created a situation of institutionalised discrimination and segregation,'' the Association for Civil Rights in Israel said.

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World Bank warns of possible Gaza bank collapse
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
December 6, 2008 - 1:00am

The World Bank said on Saturday that Israel's tightened blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip had created cash shortages that could lead to the collapse of banks in the impoverished Palestinian territory. Also sounding an alarm, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the spiraling Gazan crisis risked bolstering Palestinian militants who have alternative supplies of cash and contraband thanks to smuggling tunnels from neighboring Egypt.

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Israeli troops evict settlers in the West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - December 5, 2008 - 1:00am

HEBRON, West Bank — Israeli troops forcibly evicted about 200 hard-line Jewish settlers from a contested building in this volatile biblical city on Thursday, the first serious clash in what seems to be a spiraling confrontation between the government and defiant settlers. The operation, carried out by 600 soldiers and policemen with stealth and efficiency, took half an hour and resulted in two dozen relatively light injuries. But events did not end there. Young settlers then rampaged through Palestinian fields and neighborhoods, setting olive trees on fire and trashing houses.

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Tense Egypt-Hamas relations take a turn for the worse
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP)
December 5, 2008 - 1:00am

CAIRO (AFP) - Already tense relations between Egypt and Hamas have soured after Cairo for the first time openly accused the Islamists of torpedoing Palestinian reconciliation talks. Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit was quoted as saying on Thursday that months of Egyptian-mediated talks between rivals Hamas and Fateh failed in November because of "Hamas' lack of enthusiasm towards reconciliation".

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Israelis fight Israelis on withdrawal plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Times
by Joshua Mitnick - December 5, 2008 - 1:00am

A bloody clash Thursday between Israeli settlers and Israeli police in Hebron could mark the beginning of violent Jewish resistance to a proposed Israeli withdrawal from much of the West Bank under a peace accord. ASSOCIATED PRESS Israeli police drag away a Jewish settler during an eviction Thursday of a disputed house in Hebron. Some of the 250 settlers who barricaded themselves inside hurled rocks at police in the first major West Bank eviction since a 2006 confrontation.

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Q&A: What is the Palestinian split all about?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
December 4, 2008 - 1:00am

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority and leader of the long-dominant, secular Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), is in conflict with Hamas, the Islamist movement which won a parliamentary election in 2006. Since June 2007, when Hamas routed Abbas's forces in the Gaza Strip, prompting Abbas to fire a Hamas-led government and appoint his own in the West Bank, each side has accused the other of persecutions. Human rights monitors say there has been an upsurge in torture and detentions in the West Bank recently.

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President Obama: Go For It
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Policy Forum
by M.J. Rosenberg - (Opinion) December 4, 2008 - 1:00am

It is impossible to get Mumbai out of my mind. I keep thinking about two-year old, Moshe, sitting in his parents’ blood, crying out to a mother and father who are gone forever. It is hard to imagine how anyone can justify terror against children but many people do. In fact, fanatics of virtually every faith and nationality justify killing kids or leaving them orphans. It is sickening. Until humanity comes to the understanding that there is no justification—none, whatsoever—for killing children or making them orphans, we remain uncivilized.

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