Palestinian Society | The American Task Force on Palestine

Israel to let 300 Palestinians in Libya into WBank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Ori Lewis - February 23, 2011 - 1:00am

Israel will allow 300 Palestinians living and working in Libya to enter the West Bank in the coming days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday. "Because of the current violence in Libya I received a personal request from (Palestinian) President (Mahmoud) Abbas ... that Israel allow a number of Palestinians to leave Libya and to enter the Palestinian territories ... so Israel will enable 300 Palestinians to enter the Palestinian areas," Netanyahu said.

Dutch museum to lend Picasso for display in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC World News
February 17, 2011 - 1:00am

Palestinian art lovers are to get a rare chance to view a Picasso when the painting goes on display in April, on loan from a Dutch museum. Eindhoven's Van Abbe Museum is lending the 1943 canvas Buste de Femme to the Ramallah international art academy, Radio Netherlands Worldwide reports. A film is due to be made of the painting's journey, including the Israeli border and other checkpoints. A special, temperature-controlled room is being prepared to house it. It is believed to be the first time a Picasso masterpiece will go on display in the Palestinian territories.

The Successes of Palestinian Authority Institution Building
Media Mention of Ziad Asali In The Jerusalem Times - Bulletin - February 17, 2011 - 1:00am

For decades, the political process simply meant negotiations about the often-repeated final status issues. Hopes were raised and then dashed in extended clusters of negotiations, numerous international conferences, TV appearances and commentaries by politicians and pundits that yielded no meaningful progress toward resolution of the conflict.

Israeli government to organize school field trips to West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Ben Lynfield - February 16, 2011 - 1:00am

The Israeli government plans to begin organizing high school field trips to a contested West Bank religious site in a move that could reignite tension over a historic flash point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The initiative, announced yesterday, could bring hundreds of thousands of Israeli teens to Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, revered in Judaism as the burial site of the biblical figures Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Muslims revere the same compound for its ties to Abraham, referring to it as the Ibrahimi mosque after the man they look up to as a prophet.

Jewish Israeli woman gives birth at Palestinian West Bank hospital
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Avi Issacharoff - February 9, 2011 - 1:00am

A Jewish Israeli woman gave birth at a Palestinian West Bank Hospital, the Palestinian Ma'an news agency reported on Wednesday, with the new mother expressing the hope that the child be awarded Palestinian citizenship. The woman, a former Haifa resident who moved to the Arab Israeli town of Sakhnin after marrying an Arab Israeli man, went into labor while shopping in central Ramallah, and was ushered to a nearby public hospital.

Palestinian contractors say owed millions by PA
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 7, 2011 - 1:00am

In the course of its state-building program, the Palestinian Authority has accumulated millions of dollars in debts owed to contractors, the union of Palestinian contractors said Sunday, urging officials to pay companies what they are owed. "The union demands that the Palestinian government pays contractors in return for the projects they executed for the government. Huge debts have been accumulated since November 2010, and some contractors have overdrawn their bank accounts," said Adel Auda, union chief in the West Bank.

Fayyad: Occupation factor in regional instability
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 4, 2011 - 1:00am

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Thursday said the failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had contributed to unrest across the Middle East. Fayyad said protests across the region reflected people's desire for political reform and their legitimate aspirations for democracy. But while internal conditions sparked the wave of demonstrations across the Arab world, the PA premier said the ongoing occupation of Palestine was a source of growing despair for Arab people.

Rights group: PA banning freedom of expression
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 4, 2011 - 1:00am

A Palestinian rights group on Thursday warned of deteriorating freedom of expression in the West Bank, as the PA banned "unlicensed assembly" in response to rallies in solidarity with Egyptians. In a statement, the Palestinian Commission for Human Rights condemned the PA's closure of the demonstrations. On Wednesday, PA security forces shut down a rally in Ramallah, using batons to push demonstrators back and detaining at least two protesters. PCHR said a number of journalists were also detained at the event.

The Lifta that never will be
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Esther Zandberg - February 3, 2011 - 1:00am

The first Arab residents have begun to enter their new homes in the village of Lifta at the western approach to Jerusalem. Many of them are descendants of Palestinian families who lived there until the eve of the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. When they left the village, it remained abandoned for decades and its ruins became a symbol of the destruction of the Palestinian community in Israel.

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