Israel Confirms New Building in East Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - March 24, 2010 - 12:00am

With strains still high between Israel and the United States over the issue of Jewish settlements, construction of a contentious Jewish housing project in a predominantly Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem could start at any time, Israeli officials and experts said Wednesday Jerusalem city hall gave the project the final go-ahead on March 18, days after city officials said the landowners had paid the required fees. Once the fees were paid, City Hall said in a statement on Wednesday, “approval was granted automatically.”

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Popular committee says organizer tortured
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
March 23, 2010 - 12:00am

An organizer of popular resistance activities in the village of Al-Ma'asara alleged he was tortured while in Israeli prison, a report from the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee said on Monday. According to a statement from the committee, Al-Ma'asara organizer Omar Ala Ad-Din was detained as he passed through the Container checkpoint, an internal West Bank military post, on 14 March.

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MESS Report / Can anything douse the flames of West Bank unrest?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel - (Opinion) March 22, 2010 - 12:00am

The recent deterioration of calm in the West Bank, which involved two unpleasant incidents that occurred in less than 24 hours, are continuing to raise the heat of the West Bank barometer. Advertisement A week after the failed Palestinian attempt to ignite riots in Jerusalem and the West Bank over the building in the East Jerusalem neighborhood Ramat Shlomo, Israel is now fanning the flames with the deaths of four unarmed Palestinians at the hands of Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

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Women in charge in West Bank's key district
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Diaa Hadid - March 11, 2010 - 1:00am

At 35, Leila Ghanem is the first woman to become a Palestinian governor, the latest in a group of trailblazing women leaders who are slowly winning acceptance in this traditional society.

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Israel using strong arm tactics against young Palestinian stone-throwers
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Nir Hasson - March 9, 2010 - 1:00am

Several children in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan were arrested and taken from their homes in handcuffs in the middle of the night over the past few months, as part of a police crackdown on suspected stone-throwers, several teenage residents told B'Tselem and Haaretz. Haaretz and B'Tselem, the Israel Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, collected testimonies from several teens that suggest the police are treating them violently and violating their rights.

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Fayyad’s White Intifada
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Alex Fishman - (Opinion) March 9, 2010 - 1:00am

At this time, senior Palestinian figures no longer want the VIP cards issued by Israel to about 300 elected officials and heads of Palestinian security arms. These cards enable them, among other perks, to stay in their air-conditioned Mercedes and quickly pass through IDF roadblocks in the West Bank, while their people watch on angrily and enviously.

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Israeli Left Emerges From Coma Amid Atrocities
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Mel Frykberg - March 9, 2010 - 1:00am

On Saturday night over 3,000 Palestinian, Israeli and foreign peace activists, waving Palestinian flags and shouting "Free Sheikh Jarrah", gathered in the East Jerusalem suburb in support of Palestinians threatened with home demolitions and evictions. Progressive members of the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, called for the removal of illegal Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem and for the rights of Palestinian residents to be respected.

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Palestinian Sees Lesson Translating an Israeli’s Work
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - March 8, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM — Six years ago, when violence was the order of the day here, Elias Khoury’s 20-year-old son, George, was killed in a Palestinian terrorist attack. The Khourys are Palestinian, so the murder of George — who was out for a jog and shot from behind by gunmen in a car — produced an apology. Sorry, the killers said, we assumed the jogger was a Jew. Mr. Khoury was not only disconsolate, he was appalled. A prominent Jerusalem lawyer who often fights Israeli confiscations of land from Palestinians, he considered violence a toxin corroding his nation’s core.

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In Hebron, renovation of holy site sets off strife
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Janine Zacharia - March 8, 2010 - 1:00am

The Tomb of the Patriarchs -- a site revered by Jews, Muslims and Christians as the burial place of their common forefather, Abraham -- needed bathrooms and a new roof over an outdoor prayer area. To the spokesman for Hebron's Jewish settler community, that should not have been grounds for international scandal. "In any normal country, people would take a site like that and turn it into a nationally recognized monument," David Wilder said.

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Palestinian opposition groups: proximity talks are to fail
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by Saud Abu Ramadan, Emad Drimly - March 8, 2010 - 1:00am

Palestinian opposition factions on Monday rejected the resumption of the U.S.-sponsored indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), saying the talks will be a great failure and will never succeed. The left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine ( PFLP) accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of "exclusivity in the decision-making, mainly those related to major Palestinian issues," adding talks can never be renewed while Israel continues its settlement activities and rejects the peace principles.

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