Denying the Nakba
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Ahmad Tibi - (Opinion) July 29, 2009 - 12:00am

The battle is not over some road signs or over the status of the Arabic language or over the school curricula for grade three or four; it is a battle over raising awareness and historical accounts.

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Palestinian Authority Approves West Bank's First Planned City: Is Palestine Inching Toward Statehood?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post
by Catesby Holmes - July 28, 2009 - 12:00am

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has officially approved the Master Plan for a large-scale mixed-used development on the West Bank, scheduled to break ground in September. Rawabi, which means "the hills" in Arabic, will be the first Palestinian city to be built in thousands of years and will provide affordable housing, office buildings, restaurants, retail shops, schools, banks, a movie theater, and more.

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Securing the nightspots of Ramallah
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Omar Karmi - July 27, 2009 - 12:00am

Basem Sharawi is having a typically busy weekend. In between joking with would-be revellers at the popular Snowbar nightspot in Ramallah while politely but firmly telling them they cannot get in to the party raging below, the 28-year-old is constantly on his walkie-talkie to other members of his five-man security team. “There’s always a way to convince people. They won’t always be happy, but they will eventually see things my way,” Mr Sharawi said with a smile.

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Out of the Stone Age: Empowering a West Bank village
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald MacIntyre - July 27, 2009 - 12:00am

To the visitor it may seem picturesque. But when you've spent several hours a day for 20 years vigorously shaking a dead goat's stomach filled with milk to make butter, the novelty has long worn off. In the village of Susiya, not having electricity keeps them in their own dark age. So for Samia Shineran, 30, who has been making goat's butter by hand since she was 10, the installation of a powered churn in the family tent this spring was an unalloyed delight, giving her that much more time for the many other tasks which fall to this Palestinian mother of 10.

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The “Usefulness” of the Palestinian Cause
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Husam Itani - (Opinion) July 27, 2009 - 12:00am

If one were to place side by side Israel’s decisions and stances regarding the conflict with the Palestinians since Benjamin Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister six months ago, the features of an unmistakably organized campaign to do away with what remains of the rights of Palestinians would plainly appear.

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The Reason They Won't Help Abu-Mazen
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed - July 27, 2009 - 12:00am

In the Arab world, you must be annoying or a source of troubles to get care and attention. But if you respected the rules, did not cause clamor, or caused deaths and explosions, then no one would care about you. Therefore it is not surprising when the Somalis seek to host Al-Qaeda organization and hijack ships in their search for attention and support.

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Israel cuts Palestinian tragedy from textbooks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Matti Friedman - July 22, 2009 - 12:00am

The Israeli government will remove references to what the Palestinians call the "catastrophe" of Israel's creation from textbooks for Arab schoolchildren, the country's education minister said Wednesday. The reference to "al-naqba" or catastrophe, what the Palestinian's call their defeat and exile in the war over Israel's 1948 creation, was controversially inserted by a dovish education minister for the first time in 2007. The phrase remains contentious six decades after Israel was founded.

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Tales of a Palestinian Sleuth and Real Life
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Robert Rees - (Opinion) July 22, 2009 - 12:00am

The soft-spoken Welsh writer and news correspondent Matt Beynon Rees acknowledges that he never intended to make the Middle East his home. But Rees (no relation to this writer), Time Magazine’s former bureau chief in Jerusalem and now the author of three Palestinian detective novels, might be the first to admit that his own career has taken more unexpected turns and butted up against greater sudden dangers than he ever anticipated.

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In Jerusalem, battle of Palestinian day camps
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Ilene Prusher - July 17, 2009 - 12:00am

As she hands out paper and magic markers, Basima Alian quizzes her young campers in a sing-songy voice. "How many times a day do we pray?" asks Ms. Alian, the head counselor. "Five!" They respond in unison. "Can a woman be muezzin?" she asks, referring to the individual who calls a Muslim community to prayer. "No, only a man," one boy answers. "How do we pray together in the mosque?" "Men in the front, women behind them," a girl says.

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Conflict-worn Palestinians carve out niches of joy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Mohammed Daraghmeh - July 11, 2009 - 12:00am

Middle-class matrons shop for imported furniture in a marble-and-glass emporium. A new movie house is screening "Transformers." Teens bop to a Danish hip-hop band performing on their high school basketball court. Life in the West Bank — in sharp contrast to beaten down, Hamas-ruled Gaza — has taken on a semblance of normalcy. Exhausted after more than two decades of on-and-off conflict with Israel and deeply skeptical about prospects of statehood, Palestinians here are increasingly trying to carve out their own little niches of happiness.

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