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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Israel seeks to halt Palestinian boycott of settlement products
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Ora Coren - May 21, 2010 - 12:00am

The Manufacturers Association has asked the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry for compensation for its members who have been hurt by the Palestinian boycott against goods produced in the West Bank. Ministry officials have already approached their Palestinian counterparts and international bodies to ask them to act to cancel the boycott, which they say violates international trade rules and policies. Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer raised the issue with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in a recent meeting.

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Can Palestinians peacefully build a state?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
May 20, 2010 - 12:00am

A PORTLY official from the office of the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, planted a kiss on Musa Abu Mariya’s right eye, enveloped him in a bear hug and sped off in his sport utility vehicle trailing a cloud of dust. Mr Abu Mariya organises protests in Beit Omar, a town on the West Bank, against Israel’s appropriation of land for settlements and security walls that can cut through Palestinian farms and hurt the villagers’ livelihood. As official visits go, it was better than most. But the kiss left Mr Abu Mariya squirming.

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Exclusive interview with Gaza's Salafi leader
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
by Ibraheem Qanan - May 20, 2010 - 12:00am

"Salafism is not only in Gaza, it is all over Palestine and needs no license to practice in the heart of Tel Aviv or in Washington," Jaish Al-Islam (Army of Islam) leader Omer Al-Ansari told Ma'an during an exclusive interview on Wednesday.

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Palestinian Agro-Resistance
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from This Week in Palestine
by Vivien Sansour - May 20, 2010 - 12:00am

Abu Adnan does not talk about a global movement to save the earth. He doesn’t know much about Greenpeace or the Kyoto Protocol; but he does know everything about keeping his soil healthy and fertile, and the terraces he builds to protect his soil make his mountainous piece of land a visual paradise. A farmer since childhood in his home village of Faqua in the Jenin district, Abu Adnan Abed El Salam, who is now 78 years old, has built over 60 terraces in his lifetime, one stone at a time. When people come to talk to him about the “new” trend of organic agriculture he smiles.

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Water may not be big hurdle to Palestinian-Israeli peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by David Harris - May 20, 2010 - 12:00am

U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Thursday, two days after he held talks in Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. No details of the sessions have been made public other than the Israelis' desire to move as soon as possible from indirect to face- to-face meetings and the fact that the talks are initially concentrating on the issues of borders and security.

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To promote Arab-Israeli peace, Arabs and Israelis argue against it
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Nicholas Blanford - May 19, 2010 - 12:00am

Most grassroots peace efforts in the Middle East try to build on areas of mutual agreement, but one group of Israelis and Arabs has taken a different tack – looking for arguments against peace between Israel and Syria.

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Palestinian official: Israeli settlers' attempts to stop boycott campaign doomed to failure
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
May 19, 2010 - 12:00am

Statements by Jewish settlers that describe a new Palestinian campaign to boycott the Israeli settlements' products as economic terror are meaningless and are doomed, a Palestinian official said on Wednesday. Omar Abu Subaih, organizer of a home-to-home campaign to warn people against purchasing products of the Jewish settlement built in the occupied Palestinian territories, told Xinhua that the " settlers' attempts to stop the campaign will fail," affirming that the "settlements and their products are the real terror."

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Family Sexual Assault Surfacing in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Omer Ghraieb - May 19, 2010 - 12:00am

Eighteen-year-old “E.S.” hides in the corner of her dark room, fearing the approach of a family member coming to prey on her flesh again. The wary girl with deep green eyes and golden locks makes several grueling attempts at speech, eventually letting out in screams that she was being raped by her relatives, finally leading her to isolation.

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The path to a true peace
Media Mention of ATFP In The Hill - May 19, 2010 - 12:00am

Recently, I had lunch with an Israeli friend who, despite being a strong supporter of a two-state solution (as this writer is), was skeptical that the U.S.’s basic approach to the peace process — emphasizing negotiating the details of a peace agreement — would be enough to bring true peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

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