September 20, 2010

Fatmeh Abu Afifeh doesn't look like someone who could intimidate tough bureaucrats. Demure and only 17, she had never even spent a night away from her family until now.

But armed only with fine pearl pins that keep her head scarf firmly in place, Fatmeh is here in Ramallah with dozens of other students who exposed significant corruption across the West Bank.

Israel to allow 20 cars into Gaza

Israel will permit the entry of private vehicles into Gaza on Monday for the first time since 2007, a Palestinian crossing official said.

Raed Fattouh said 20 cars will enter the Strip, as well as oil, spare parts and rubber tires. Israel has slowly allowed the entry of car parts and oil for the first time in four years over the past week.

Israeli FM wants to exclude Palestinians

Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called for Israel's borders to be redrawn to exclude some Palestinian citizens, the Associated Press reported Sunday.

Speaking ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting, Lieberman proposed a shift in the principle of peace talks, which he said "must not be land for peace, but an exchange of land and people," AP said.

The border should be redrawn, Lieberman explained, so Israel's Arab citizens, who make up 20 percent of the country's population, would be on the Palestinian side, while Jewish settlements would be incorporated into Israel.

Former Israeli premier details failed peace offer

Israel's former premier gave his most detailed description yet of his 2008 peace offer to the Palestinians, saying in a lecture Sunday that if the current talks are to succeed, the agreement would have to resemble the plan the Palestinians turned down two years ago.

The Palestinians deemed Ehud Olmert's offer insufficient at the time, but wanted the more hawkish premier who replaced him, Benjamin Netanyahu, to use it as a starting point for negotiations. Instead, Netanyahu has taken it off the table.

Top Hamas official arrested in Egypt

A top Hamas security official was arrested at Cairo airport for using falsified travel documents, Egyptians officials said Sunday.

Mohammed Dababish's relatives said he was returning from a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia when he was stopped.

Dababish is a top official in Hamas' internal security unit, which oversees intelligence matters in Gaza. Hamas officials declined to comment.

Egypt has arrested a string of Hamas figures since one of its soldiers was killed in a border shooting early this year, including the son of a Hamas Cabinet minister last month.

PA court: Sale of Palestinian land to Israelis is punishable by death

The sale of Palestinian land to Israelis is punishable by death, a Palestinian Authority court ruled on Sunday, in what Palestinian officials are saying is a necessary measure to ensure the founding of a future state.

Judge Ta'et At-Twil, according to a report by the Palestinian news agency Ma'an, ruled that selling, or attempting to sell, land to a foreign country was a criminal offense which could result in the death penalty.

Hamas: We told U.S. in the past that we would accept Palestinian state along 1967 borders

The Hamas militant group announced Monday that it had previously told the United States it would accept the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, according to Israel Radio.

Citing the organization's semi-annual report, Israel Radio said that Hamas had also asked the U.S. administration to open dialogue. The militant group said in its report that it had passed that message along via American academics and politicians visiting the Gaza Strip.

For Palestinians, settler abuse is only the beginning of the ordeal

Almost every few weeks (or days, depending on the season), the following ceremony repeats itself in Palestinian villages around Nablus: A group of Israeli settlers from one of the outposts in the West Bank hills attacks Palestinian farmers while they are grazing sheep or working the fields, hoping to throw them off Palestinian land.

Hamas: Death sentence for drug dealers

Article Author(s): 

Ali Waked

Media Outlet: 

Ynetnews

Date: 

September 19, 2010

Source Link(s): 

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3956631,00.html [15]

Hamas approved a law permitting the death sentence for drug dealers and up to seven years behind bars for drug users, thereby stepping up its war on drugs in the Gaza Strip. Ministry of the Interior spokesman Ihab al-Rasin said Sunday that Hamas had in fact adopted an Egyptian law.

Al-Rasin, speaking during a ceremony to mark the end of a three-month campaign against drugs, also accused Israel of "continuing its efforts to swamp the Strip with drugs."

PA arrests Hamas men in West Bank

Article Author(s): 

Ali Waked

Media Outlet: 

Ynetnews

Date: 

September 19, 2010

Source Link(s): 

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3956187,00.html [16]

Ynet also learned Sunday that the Palestinian Authority carried out many preemptive arrests over the weekend after Hamas threatened to avenge the assassination of Iyad abu Shilbayeh by Israel. Among the detainees were members of Islamic Jihad.

The PA held several meetings following the murder in order to prepare for Hamas' supposed retaliation, for fear that such a move would be especially desirable for the Islamist group due to the direct talks between the Palestinians and Israel.

The Tehran tangle in Middle East peace

Article Author(s): 

Manual Hassassian

Article Author(s): 

Edward Edy Kaufman

Media Outlet: 

The Guardian

Article Type: 

Opinion

Date: 

September 20, 2010

Source Link(s): 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/20/middle-east-peace-iran-nucle... [17]

Success in the current Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will depend on active bridging by the third party, the United States. At the same time, we should not forget the destructive role played in the past and present by spoilers on both sides, as well as others further afield. As the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, stated last month, "the enemies of peace will keep trying to defeat us and derail these talks".

To the End of the Land by David Grossman

Article Author(s): 

Jacqueline Rose

Media Outlet: 

The Guardian

Article Type: 

Book Review

Date: 

September 18, 2010

Source Link(s): 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/18/david-grossman-end-of-the-land [18]

For some time now, David Grossman has been describing his writing as a means of survival, as a way of no longer feeling a victim in the "disaster zone" of the seemingly eternal conflict that is Israel-Palestine. At moments he has talked of the risk of dispassion, of being paralysed with fear and despair. With the publication of this extraordinary, impassioned novel, such purpose or hope acquires a new meaning and intensity. It now seems that the life to be saved by writing, even though the struggle may be doomed, could only be – perhaps always has been – the life of a child.

Netherlands nixes visit by Israeli mayors

Media Outlet: 

Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)

Date: 

September 19, 2010

Source Link(s): 

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/09/19/2740969/netherlands-cancels-visit-by-... [19]

The Netherlands canceled a visit by Israeli mayors because the group included the leaders of West Bank settlements.

Participants in the delegation, sponsored by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, included the heads of 30 small local councils, including several Arab communities. West Bank communities represented on the delegation include Kiryat Arba, Oranit, Beit El, Elkana and Efrat.

Mideast needs a peace of the brave

Article Author(s): 

Adel Safty

Media Outlet: 

Gulf News

Article Type: 

Opinion

Date: 

September 20, 2010

Source Link(s): 

http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/mideast-needs-a-peace-of-the-brave-1.684... [20]

The late Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) used to refer to the peace process he and the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin started in the early 1990s as the "peace of the brave". This was more of a colourful description than an accurate rendition of reality.

Contesting Past and Present at Silwan

Article Author(s): 

Joel Beinin

Media Outlet: 

Middle East Report

Article Type: 

Analysis

Date: 

September 17, 2010

Source Link(s): 

http://www.merip.org/mero/mero091710.html [21]

On September 1, Elad -- a Hebrew acronym for “To the City of David” -- convened its eleventh annual archaeological conference at the “City of David National Park” in the Wadi Hilwa neighborhood of Silwan. Silwan, home to about 45,000 people, is one of 28 Palestinian villages incorporated into East Jerusalem and annexed by Israel after the June 1967 war. It lies in a valley situated a short walk beyond the Dung Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Our Man in Palestine

Article Author(s): 

Nathan Thrall

Media Outlet: 

The New York Review Of Books

Article Type: 

Analysis

Date: 

September 16, 2010

Source Link(s): 

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/oct/14/our-man-palestine/?paginati... [22]

On August 31, the night before President Obama’s dinner inaugurating direct talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Hamas gunmen shot and killed four Jewish settlers in Hebron, the West Bank’s largest and most populous governorate. The attack—the deadliest against Israeli citizens in more than two years—was condemned by Palestinian and Israeli officials, who said that it was meant to thwart the upcoming negotiations.

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