UNESCO votes to add Bethlehem holy sites to world heritage list
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
June 29, 2012 - 12:00am

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- UNESCO on Friday declared Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity and the nearby pilgrimage route World Heritage sites. Thirteen members of the 21-nation World Heritage Committee voted in favor of the Palestinian application, securing exactly the needed number of votes. Two countries abstained and six voted against the bid. "I am delighted," Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki told the conference in St. Petersburg, to rapturous applause. "You have our most gracious thanks."

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Women with disabilities face dual discrimination
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
June 29, 2012 - 12:00am

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Women with disabilities face a dual discrimination in Palestinian society and their families and the government are failing to protect them, experts say. Legal researcher for the rights group Al-Haq Issam Abdeen and Zaid Amro, an adviser to the PA Ministry of Social Affairs, appeared on Ma'an TV's talk show "You" to discuss issues facing women with disabilities.

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Palestinians: UN heritage nod is political victory
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Karin Laub - June 29, 2012 - 12:00am

The Palestinians on Friday persuaded the U.N. cultural agency to list the Church of the Nativity — the place where Christians believe Jesus was born — as an endangered World Heritage site despite misgivings by churches in charge of the basilica. The Palestinians hailed the nod by UNESCO as a step forward in their quest for global recognition of an independent Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967.

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Palestinian Children
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Emily L. Hauser - (Opinion) June 29, 2012 - 12:00am

Those of us who advocate for a just Israeli-Palestinian peace (however defined) make a point of clarifying that each side has seen enormous suffering, and we’re right to do so. There are no angels and very few innocents in this war–there’s far more ugly dehumanization, bloodletting, and endless, inconsolable mourning.

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Palestinian: US supports 'an apartheid system that is suffocating us'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from MSNBC
by Yara Borgal - June 28, 2012 - 12:00am

BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK – At the Aida Refugee Camp, a few blocks from Israel’s separation wall, is the Al Rowwad Cultural and Theater Center founded by Dr. Abdelfattah Abusrour in 1998 with the philosophy of “beautiful resistance” against the Israeli power over their land. Abusrour is part of the first generation of children born to refugee parents in the Aida Refugee Camp, which was established in 1950 between the towns of Bethlehem and Beit Jala. It is now home to around 5,000 inhabitants all descendants from the 1948 expulsion from Palestine.

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The new Palestinian
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Hamze Awawde - (Opinion) June 27, 2012 - 12:00am

I was born in 1990. I experienced a bit of the first intifada; the creation of the Palestinian Authority and what is called Palestinian self-administration; the rounds of negotiation between Israel and Palestine; the second intifada; the failure of the peace process; Hamas in government; the West Bank separating completely from the Gaza strip; and revolutions in the Arab world called the “Arab Spring,” that changed everything in the region. I am only 22 years old.

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Palestinians in last push for UN nod for Bethlehem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Karin Laub - June 27, 2012 - 12:00am

The Palestinians on Wednesday made a final push to have UNESCO recognize the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the Israeli-controlled West Bank as an endangered World Heritage site, despite misgivings by Christian denominations and a cool response from the U.N. agency.

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The perils of alienation over Palestine
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Ghaith Al-Omari - (Opinion) June 26, 2012 - 12:00am

Critics of the American Task Force on Palestine get one thing right: Palestinian Americans have largely failed to make their voices heard in the mainstream American political and foreign-policy conversation. However, this is the fault of self-styled “pro-Palestinian” advocates who operate in a cult-like echo-chamber and advocate an approach that does considerable harm to the Palestinian cause.

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Gazans celebrate Brotherhood victory in Egypt
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Ibrahim Barzak - June 25, 2012 - 12:00am

The Gaza Strip erupted in celebratory gunfire on Sunday with news that the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate won the presidency in neighboring Egypt, but one person was killed. Tens of thousands of joyous Palestinians took to the streets across the territory after Egypt announced that Mohammed Morsi won last weekend's runoff election, the first time an Islamist has won that nation's highest office.

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Palestinian Authority arrests more than 100 following death of Jenin governor
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - June 25, 2012 - 12:00am

Many family members of detainees from the Jenin refugee camp have been having trouble sleeping in recent weeks. Not because of their relatives held in Israeli prisons but rather because of their relatives held in Palestinian Authority prisons, and mainly because of rumors - which have been confirmed - of torture at the Preventative Security detention facility in Jericho.

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