PALESTINIAN TERRITORY: Q&A on a new currency
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
(Blog) May 10, 2011 - 12:00am

As part of a statehood bid they plan to bring before the U.N. this September, Palestinians are pushing for the creation of a new Palestine Central Bank and the introduction of new currency. But Jihad Al-Wazir, 48, governor of the Palestinian Monetary Authority, which hopes to soon evolve into the first central bank, says work is needed before reintroducing the Palestinian pound.

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Protest a tough sell among Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - May 10, 2011 - 12:00am

Camped under a tent in what he hoped would become the Tahrir Square of the West Bank, hunger striker Iyas Sarhan reclined on a foam mattress in a pair of increasingly baggy slim-fit jeans and waited for the Palestinian revolution to begin.

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Budrus: A West Bank village's emblematic struggle for its land
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - (Blog) May 9, 2011 - 12:00am

I'm finally back in Jerusalem after almost two months away, much of it in Tripoli, which was weird and fascinating. But it's great to be back, and I intend to resume regular blogposts from this week, getting out and seeing what's happening on the ground in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Today sees the DVD release of Budrus, a documentary film about a Palestinian village's struggle against the route of Israel's separation barrier. Budrus has deservedly won many awards and if you didn't get a chance to see it at the cinema, now's your chance to catch up.

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UN agency stages Gaza's first-ever marathon
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
May 6, 2011 - 12:00am

About 1,500 professional and amateur runners have participated in the first-ever Gaza Marathon Thursday, which aims to raise funds for a United Nation's agency that helps Palestinian refugees. School children participating in the marathon run in relays along the route from the northern Gaza Strip to its southern end, while adults and the professional athletes run the full marathon, half marathon or 10 kilometers at the end. The sun rise was the zero hour for the marathon which took the entrance of the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun as a start line.

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Gaza: Barenboim Performs in Palestinian Territory
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Fares Akram - May 4, 2011 - 12:00am

The Israeli musician Daniel Barenboim and 25 members of his orchestra performed in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Tuesday. Mr. Barenboim, who has honorary Palestinian citizenship, is a harsh critic of Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and he co-founded a music education project in the Palestinian territories.


Palestinians: Fire damages mosque in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from
May 3, 2011 - 12:00am

Palestinian villagers say a mosque has been set on fire in the northern West Bank. The residents of Hawara village near Nablus say they didn't see anyone at the scene of the pre-dawn blaze on Tuesday. But the villagers say they suspect the mosque was torched by Jewish settlers who live nearby and with whom they have strained relations. Villagers put out the fire, which damaged prayer carpets. Two of the mosque's windows were broken. Israeli security forces had no immediate comment.

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Barenboim to conduct Gaza 'peace concert'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP)
May 2, 2011 - 12:00am

Renowned Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim will lead a "peace concert" by an orchestra of European musicians on Tuesday in the Gaza Strip, a United Nations agency said on Monday. The rare concert was announced in a statement by the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process, and will take place on Tuesday afternoon at Al-Mathaf Cultural House in Gaza City. Barenboim, an outspoken proponent of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, said he was delighted to be going to Gaza for the concert. "We are very happy to come to Gaza," he said in the UN statement.

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Palestinian Factions Give Differing Views of Unity Pact
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - April 28, 2011 - 12:00am

A day after the two main Palestinian factions announced surprise plans for a unity government, the challenge of bringing together two rival parties with distinct ideologies burst into view, with each side presenting a different picture of what the accord means and what produced it. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, said Thursday that because he was also chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization he remained in charge of peace efforts with Israel. The future unity government, he said, will have only two functions, to rebuild Gaza and set up elections within a year.

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Outdoing Israel in brutality
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Faisal Al Qasim - (Opinion) April 27, 2011 - 12:00am

The Arab media has, for over half a century or so, strongly condemned Zionist crimes against the Palestinians and other Arab peoples. It has in actual fact provided a hell of a lot of satire on Zionist brutality, which is fair enough. But is the Arab media still able to satirise Israeli barbarism with the same vigour after it has witnessed what Arab dictators have done to their own people? Isn't it a bit silly to bombard the Israelis with criticism and keep quiet about savagery against unarmed demonstrators?

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Palestinians launch their revolution
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Jackson Diehl - (Opinion) April 27, 2011 - 12:00am

It’s not yet certain that a political deal announced Wednesday by the long-divided Palestinian Fatah and Hamas factions will stick--similar pacts have been proclaimed and then discarded several times in the last four years. But one thing is sure: If Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas moves forward with the reconciliation with the Islamic Hamas movement, it will mean he has written off the Obama administration and the peace process it has tried to broker, once and for all.

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