Under Siege, Life In Gaza Just Shrinks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Steven Erlanger - November 19, 2007 - 4:18pm

IT’S a miserable time to be a Gazan. EMPTY STREETS Gaza City can feel like a ghost town on a Friday morning, with its factories closed, jobs scarce and gas too expensive for many people to use. SCRIMPING Majid Ajour used to sell pigeons for $3 apiece. With the principal border crossings to Israel and Egypt closed, the price of imported feed has risen. Now he tries to sell his pigeons for nearly $4 each.

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Judging Hamas's Actions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
(Editorial) November 16, 2007 - 4:27pm

Hamas broke away from the Palestinian Authority and took over Gaza by force. Some of its members threw a defenseless Fatah employee from the rooftop of a 15-story apartment building to his death. Hamas’ security forces killed peaceful demonstrators in the streets and prevented people from praying in public squares; all this in just under five months. Hamas openly abused the political system that brought it to power and in the process ruined intra-Palestinian relations. Therefore we wonder, why the reckless behavior and why all this violence?

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The Palestinian Path To Peace Does Not Go Via Annapolis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Jonathan Steele - (Opinion) November 16, 2007 - 4:22pm

As the United States-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, approaches, the key question is what follows when it fails. Fiasco is looming, so what do the Palestinians do next? In their decades-long bid for justice, they have already tried everything.

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Israel's Economic Blockade Stops Gaza's Strawberry-farmers Selling Their Crop
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald Macintyre - November 16, 2007 - 4:20pm

Almost all of Gaza's turbulent story is bound up with Jamil Abu Hmaideh's strawberry fields here in the far north of the strip. Between two wispy clouds high in the blue sky above us, two Israeli Apache helicopters hover on the look-out for the Qassam rocket-launching crews as we bite into the luscious, perfectly ripened fruit Mr Hmaideh has picked for us.

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In Lawless Nablus, The Law Changes At Sundown
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Matthew Gutman - November 16, 2007 - 4:05pm

Tawfiq Kalboni fidgets with some wayward bills. A moneylender in this central West Bank city, Kalboni, 42, owed another moneylender about $150,000. When he failed to pay, he said, the creditor collected on the debt, Nablus style. Five weeks ago, masked gunmen kidnapped his 14-year-old son from the doorstep of his house.

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Fear Of Hamas Looms Over Statehood Bid
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Week
by Stewart Ain - November 15, 2007 - 6:15pm

The bloody end to a massive rally in Gaza Monday marking the third anniversary of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat’s death is seen as underscoring the disunity of the Palestinian people whose aspirations for their own state are proving more and more elusive.

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Volatile City Tests Palestinian Police, And Peace Hopes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - November 14, 2007 - 12:39pm

This lawless city in the northern West Bank is ruled by rival militias and criminal gangs, an especially gritty illustration of why a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank, as expected under a future peace deal, gives Israelis pause.

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Economic Woes Behind New Unrest In Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Karin Laub - November 14, 2007 - 12:38pm

The backdrop to the latest explosion of violence in the Gaza Strip: skeletons of unfinished apartment towers, shuttered factories, empty store shelves and skyrocketing prices for bread and cigarettes. Five months of rule by the Islamic militants of Hamas and isolation from the world have taken a heavy toll on the already impoverished territory, and frustration over the hardship helped drive this week's mass rally by the rival Fatah movement that ended in mayhem.

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Analysis: Hamas Losing Grip On Gaza, Fatah Gaining Support
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel And Avi Issacharoff - November 13, 2007 - 3:57pm

The Hamas gunmen who sought to disperse the crowd at the rally Monday in Gaza marking the third anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat did not use rubber-coated bullets or tear gas; they simply opened fire on the crowd, leaving seven dead and dozens injured. In so doing, they added to the pressure under which the Islamic organization is laboring five months after it took over the Gaza Strip from Fatah forces.

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Adam Lebor Looks Forward To Israel’s Sixtieth Birthday
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Quarterly
by Adam Lebor - (Commentary) November 13, 2007 - 3:49pm

Sitting in a cafe on Shenkin street in Tel Aviv, reading the letters page of the Jerusalem Post, I much enjoyed an exchange between two American Zionist machers. M. J. Rosenberg, of the doveish Israel Policy Forum, opined that a true Zionist lives in Tel Aviv.

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