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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3 wounded during West Bank weekly anti-wall demonstration
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
May 22, 2010 - 12:00am

Three Palestinians were injured and five others detained during the weekly protests against the separation wall that Israel is building in the West Bank, witnesses and medical sources said Friday. The witnesses said that the Israeli army dispersed by rubber bullets and tear gas canisters a demonstration near the village of Bel'ein, west of Ramallah, in the West Bank.

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IDF attacks 3 Gaza tunnels
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
May 21, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel Air Force jets attacked three tunnels in the Gaza Strip in a joint Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet operation on Thursday night, several hours after a Qassam rocket hit the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council. Two of the targets attacked were in the southern Strip and one was in the northern Strip. According to the IDF, terrorists were using the tunnels to try to infiltrate Israel.

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Boycott volunteers say army searching for them
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 21, 2010 - 12:00am

Volunteers with the Palestinian Authority's House to House settlement goods boycott campaign said Israeli forces entered the Husan village, west of Bethlehem, searching for them. Volunteer Ahmad Jaz'ul told Ma'an that four Israeli military jeeps "raided the village at 1pm in the afternoon, searching for the campaign's volunteers, stopping passer-bys and asking where we were." "We hid our uniforms and ID cards. Some volunteers stayed hidden in their homes until the Israeli army withdrew," he added.

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Arab funding could be a game changer
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by George S. Hishmeh - May 20, 2010 - 12:00am

The Israeli narrative — thanks to Israel's wealthy and well-connected supporters and the many politicians who, in turn, are desperately in need of their financial backing and votes — is prevalent in the West, especially in the United States. This is evident in the halls of Congress, in the American media, in mushrooming think-tanks in key cities, particularly Washington, and, needless to say, among some senior US officials.

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Homes Built as Statement Razed to Make Another
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Fares Akram - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Nidal Eid was praised by Hamas officials as an example of anti-Zionist resistance when he managed to build a house here last year despite an Israeli blockade that barred the import of any building materials. But earlier this week, his house was the first to be demolished by the Hamas government, which said it had been illegally built on public land. Bulldozers, accompanied by Hamas forces and police officers who beat residents with sticks, razed at least 25 houses, including some concrete structures here in Rafah, the southernmost city of Gaza.

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Hamas downplays Israel's threats to re-occupy Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Islamic Hamas movement downplayed on Tuesday reports of Israeli plans to re-occupy the Gaza Strip and appoint an Israeli military governor to run the coastal enclave that is now controlled by Hamas. "It's a meaningless psychological war that aims at reducing the morale of the Palestinian people and their resistance," Hamas spokesperson, Fawzi Barhoum, told Xinhua.

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Israel shuts down PA municipal office in Hebron
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
by Muhammad Oweiweih - May 17, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli authorities closed down the Palestinian Authority Municipal Inspectors building in the Old City of Hebron on Sunday, the city's mayor said. Hebron Mayor Khalid Al-Useili said the procedure was "illegal and a violation of the Hebron agreement," and would endeavor to reopen the office immediately. Al-Useili said Israeli authorities accused the PA of allowing its police force to operate secretly in the area, known as H2 and under full Israeli control, which would constitute a contravention of the Hebron Protocol and Agreement signed on 15 January 1997 between the PA and Israel.

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Israel's apartheid road
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Rachel Shabi - May 17, 2010 - 12:00am

If you didn't have peripheral vision, it would probably be fine. If you didn't glance to the sides of Israel's highway 443 between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, then it wouldn't smack you in the face that the road is – how shall we put it? – segregated. As it is, you can't help but notice that when the 443 passes by the Israeli town of Modi'in and heads east into the occupied West Bank, some of its side-routes are blocked. Concrete boulders, metal barriers, rubble and heaps of rubbish halt roads from Palestinian villages such as Beit Sira and Beit Ur al-Fuka.

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Archaic Israeli convictions and bad faith
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Adel Safty - May 17, 2010 - 12:00am

One of the fundamental tenets of political Zionism has been the so-called redemption of the land for the purpose of founding a Jewish state where all the Jews of the world are supposed to gather and find a safe haven from persecution. The early Zionist leaders recognised the difficulty they faced: the land to be redeemed was Palestine and it was inhabited by another people who could not be expected to peacefully acquiesce to the transformation of their country into a Jewish state.

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