Abbas seeks vote on Gaza report
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
October 12, 2009 - 12:00am

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has called for a session of the UN Human Rights Council to vote on a report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza. Mr Abbas has faced a week of angry criticism after the Palestinian Authority backed deferring the vote until March. On Sunday he said there had not been enough support for the vote. Hamas's leader in Damascus called the issue a "scandal" that would harm Palestinian unity efforts.

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Hamas's PR Campaign Against the Authority
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed - October 11, 2009 - 12:00am

Everyone knows that Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas differs much from his predecessor, the late Yasser Arafat, in his method of managing crises. This prompted President Abbas many times to go into isolation and sometimes threaten to resign because he could bear internal and external pressures.

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Talk to Hamas now or fight new radicals indefinitely
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Nathan Stock - (Opinion) October 9, 2009 - 12:00am

History is repeating itself in the Palestinian territories. Washington refuses to engage a right-wing Palestinian group – and so spawns organizations that are even more extreme. It happened in the 1980s, when the US balked at recognizing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and hesitated to seek a resolution to the Middle East conflict through the creation of a Palestinian state. Those long delays helped propel the rise of the hard-line Islamist party Hamas.

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Europe's top soccer official touts sport in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
October 8, 2009 - 12:00am

Bethlehem – Ma’an – The head of Europe’s football governing body visited the West Bank on Wednesday in a continuing Mideast tour where he has promoted the sport as peace building tool. UEFA President Michel Platini toured the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the morning before heading to Ramallah for talks with caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

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Only gall and nothing more
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) October 8, 2009 - 12:00am

Is the discourse we are conducting - if indeed we are conducting any discourse among ourselves and with our interlocutor - legitimate at all? Ever since the territories were occupied a public debate has been going on here about their future and what is being done there. The questions have come and gone, all of them in the same cursed vein: To give? To concede? Under what conditions? In exchange for what?

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UN body to debate Gaza 'crimes'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
October 8, 2009 - 12:00am

Arab states say the 14 October debate must tackle a report which criticised Israel, after the US argued against a emergency session dedicated to it. The UN Human Rights Council delayed its debate on the findings of the Goldstone report following a Palestinian request. Libya's envoy to the Security Council said its aim was to "keep momentum". Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has come under sharp criticism at home for requesting the UNHRC delay, which followed intense pressure from the US.

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Lessons from the Goldstone issue
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Daoud Kuttab - (Opinion) October 8, 2009 - 12:00am

The angry political and public reaction to the decision by the Palestinian leadership to postpone discussions of the Goldstone war crimes report requires a sober look at the reasons and lessons that need to be learned to avoid repetition.

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Gaza: Hamas bans motorbike rides for women
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
October 7, 2009 - 12:00am

The Hamas government has banned motorcycle riders from carrying women on the back seat – the latest in the militants' virtue campaign in Gaza. The ban was posted on Hamas Interior Ministry Web site on Tuesday. It said the ban seeks "to preserve citizen safety and the stability of Palestinian society's customs and traditions." Hamas wants to impose a strict interpretation of Islam. Its other efforts have included breaking up mixed couples on the beach and obliging female lawyers to wear headscarves in court.

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Palestinian U-turn on Gaza report
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
October 7, 2009 - 12:00am

The UN Security Council is set to discuss whether to hold an emergency session on the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes. A senior PA politician has said last week's request to defer discussion of the report was a "mistake". The PA decision sparked an outcry among Palestinians. Libya, the only Arab state on the 15-member body, will request the UN session in a closed-door meeting.

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The Palestinian Authority and the Battle of Position and legitimacy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Abdullah Iskandar - (Opinion) October 7, 2009 - 12:00am

What would have happened if the Human Rights Council had voted in favor of referring Goldstone's report to the Security Council? Certainly, the United States would have practiced its veto power to prevent the completion of the report which accuses Israel and Hamas of committing "war crimes" during the aggression on the Gaza Strip. In other words, the result would have been the same if the Palestinian Authority had not requested to delay the voting until next March.

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