Hamas faces financial crisis after three-year Israeli blockade
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Erin Cunningham - May 21, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas has failed to pay in full the monthly salaries of its roughly 30,000 civilian and security employees in the past two months, signaling that the Islamist organization may be in the throes of its first financial crisis since it seized control of Gaza in 2007. "The government is facing a crisis," said Hamas lawmaker Jamal Nassar last month. "The siege on the [Hamas-run] Palestinian government has been tightened recently and because of this it has been unable to bring in funds from abroad."

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West Bank health and economy up a bit, Gaza down
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 19, 2010 - 12:00am

With a failing economy, rising unemployment and deteriorating power, sanitation and health facilities, the health of Gaza's population continues to worsen, according to a recent World Health Organization (WHO) report. In contrast, modest improvements have been made in the West Bank. As a consequence of Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, 98 percent of industrial operations have been shut down since 2007 and there are acute shortages of fuel, cash, cooking gas and other basic supplies.

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Report: PA willing to have NATO forces in future state
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Roee Nahmias - May 19, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas intends on informing Special US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell that the Palestinian Authority would agree to have NATO forces stationed in future Palestine, London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi reported Wednesday. Abbas and Mitchell are scheduled to meet in Ramallah on Wednesday afternoon.

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Palestinians, Israelis remain skeptical as peace talks begin
Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In Xinhua - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

It is now one year four months and 21 days since the last official talks between Israelis and Palestinians. During those 506 days the parties have repeatedly blamed one another for that breakdown and the failure to reboot negotiations. Indirect peace talks are expected to resume on Wednesday but Israelis and Palestinians alike are still expressing serious reservations about the chances of their success.

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Homes Built as Statement Razed to Make Another
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Fares Akram - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Nidal Eid was praised by Hamas officials as an example of anti-Zionist resistance when he managed to build a house here last year despite an Israeli blockade that barred the import of any building materials. But earlier this week, his house was the first to be demolished by the Hamas government, which said it had been illegally built on public land. Bulldozers, accompanied by Hamas forces and police officers who beat residents with sticks, razed at least 25 houses, including some concrete structures here in Rafah, the southernmost city of Gaza.

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Mitchell to launch proximity talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Khaled Abu Toameh - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell is scheduled to hold talks in Ramallah on Wednesday with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, marking the launch of the “proximity talks” with Israel, PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Monday. Mitchell is to arrive in Israel on Tuesday afternoon, and meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday. He is set to leave the region later that day.

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Palestinians, Israelis remain skeptical as peace talks begin
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by David Harris - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

It is now one year four months and 21 days since the last official talks between Israelis and Palestinians. During those 506 days the parties have repeatedly blamed one another for that breakdown and the failure to reboot negotiations. Indirect peace talks are expected to resume on Wednesday but Israelis and Palestinians alike are still expressing serious reservations about the chances of their success.

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Israel shuts down PA municipal office in Hebron
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
by Muhammad Oweiweih - May 17, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli authorities closed down the Palestinian Authority Municipal Inspectors building in the Old City of Hebron on Sunday, the city's mayor said. Hebron Mayor Khalid Al-Useili said the procedure was "illegal and a violation of the Hebron agreement," and would endeavor to reopen the office immediately. Al-Useili said Israeli authorities accused the PA of allowing its police force to operate secretly in the area, known as H2 and under full Israeli control, which would constitute a contravention of the Hebron Protocol and Agreement signed on 15 January 1997 between the PA and Israel.

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'IDF to blame for price-tag atmosphere'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Tovah Lazaroff - May 17, 2010 - 12:00am

The head of the soon-to-be-demolished Od Yosef Hai Yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement has blamed the IDF for creating an atmosphere in which some Jews were executed a "price-tag" policy of retribution against Palestinians for the IDF demolition of settler homes in Judea and Samaria. "A price tag policy is anarchy and they [the IDF] are the anarchists," said Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira on Sunday night at a solidarity event at the yeshiva. "A person who does things that can not be accepted by any sane person, is an anarchist."

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Israel's apartheid road
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Rachel Shabi - May 17, 2010 - 12:00am

If you didn't have peripheral vision, it would probably be fine. If you didn't glance to the sides of Israel's highway 443 between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, then it wouldn't smack you in the face that the road is – how shall we put it? – segregated. As it is, you can't help but notice that when the 443 passes by the Israeli town of Modi'in and heads east into the occupied West Bank, some of its side-routes are blocked. Concrete boulders, metal barriers, rubble and heaps of rubbish halt roads from Palestinian villages such as Beit Sira and Beit Ur al-Fuka.

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