July 13, 2012

Middle East News: World Press Roundup

NEWS: Palestinian citizens of Israel face new quandaries over the prospect of mandatory national service. Israel's richest rabbis are demonstrating business acumen. New medical reports about the health of the late Pres. Arafat portray him as having been relatively healthy until a sudden decline immediately before his death. Arafat's sister calls on the PA not to perform any tests on his body. A Palestinian medical committee claims Arafat was poisoned, but says it can't confirm the use of polonium. Israel condemns UNESCO's decision to establish a chair at the Islamic University of Gaza. Israeli forces kill a man trying to illegally enter the country through the Egyptian border. 30 Palestinians are injured in a fireworks explosion near Ramallah. The head of British intelligence claims Iran is two years away from developing a nuclear weapon. Israeli immigration police are granted the power to deport foreign activists in the occupied Palestinian territories. A German neo-Nazi claims he was involved in the 1972 attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. A Jerusalem city counselor says Israeli authorities are disguising the true scope of Palestinian home demolitions. A young Palestinian singer is becoming an unlikely star in Israel. COMMENTARY: Nir Eisikovits says former PM Olmert is well-positioned for a return to public life and to lead a push for peace with the Palestinians. Sima Kadmon says PM Netanyahu would be the big loser if Olmert were to return to Israeli politics. Amira Hass says that while right-wing attacks on Palestinians continue, Israeli authorities are only arresting left-wing activists. Hirsh Goodman asks what the settler movement will do if the rest of Israeli society agrees that there is no occupation in the occupied Palestinian territories. Giles Fraser critiques a Church of England volunteer program in the occupied Palestinian territories. J.J. Goldberg points out the dangers to Israel of the Levy Committee's recommendations. Matt Duss looks at rhetoric about Israel and the Palestinians among American evangelical Christian groups. Aaron David Miller asks if the US really matters anymore in Egypt and Israel.

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Service to Israel Tugs at Identity of Arab Citizens

Three young Palestinian women sat on the floor at a summer camp this week surrounded by Legos and 3-year-olds. As the toddlers played, the women taught them the color of each block, repeating the words in Arabic, azrak for blue or akhdar for green.

Israel's richest rabbis become savvy businessmen

One summer night, on the outskirts of a sleepy desert town, a who's who of Israel's elite gathered for an annual feast to honor a rabbi whose gaze is said to pierce the soul.

He's Rabbi Yaacov Israel Ifargan. But he is better known as, simply, the X-ray.

New Arafat medical file released in death probe

Medical files released for the first time Thursday portray Yasser Arafat as a robust 75-year-old whose sudden health crisis, a month before his mysterious 2004 death, was initially blamed on viral gastroenteritis.

The treatment notes by Arafat's Arab doctors who cared for him at his West Bank compound before he was airlifted to France are part of a renewed push to find out what killed the Palestinian leader.

Arafat sister: Don't exhume late leader's body

A sister of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is not among those, including his widow, calling for the Palestinian Authority to exhume the body in the wake new questions about his death.

"Leave him to rest in his soil,” Khadija Arafat said Thursday, saying she has been overwhelmed with media inquiries following an Al Jazeera investigation that raised the possibility Arafat was poisoned.

Committee: Arafat died from unknown poison

The head of a medical committee investigating the death of Yasser Arafat said Thursday that the late President died from poisoning, but not could not confirm the use of a radioactive element called polonium.

Abdullah Al-Basheer, a doctor in Jordan, made the comments during a press conference in Ramallah. While not being able to confirm the use of polonium, the element can still not be excluded from current investigations, he said.

UNESCO chair at Gaza University angers Israel

Israel has condemned UNESCO's decision to establish a chair at the Islamic University of Gaza, calling the institution "a breeding ground for terrorists."

Israel's foreign ministry said Thursday that "(Palestinian militant group) Hamas uses Gaza University laboratories to develop and produce explosives and rockets and has even run a course on explosive making."

Gaza militants often bomb southern Israel with mortars and rockets.

Israeli troops kill man crossing illegally from Egypt

Israeli troops shot dead a man trying to infiltrate the Sinai border with Egypt and wounded another on Friday, the Israeli military said, in the latest in a series of deadly incidents along a once quiet frontier.

Both men, who crossed the desert border under cover of darkness, turned out to be unarmed when Israeli medics found them after dawn, a military spokeswoman said.

She would not divulge the identities or nationalities of the infiltrators though Israeli media said they were Palestinians from the nearby Gaza Strip.

30 Palestinians wounded in fireworks explosion near Ramallah

At least 30 Palestinians were wounded early Friday by an explosion of fireworks when they were celebrating a wedding ceremony in a small town near the West Bank city of Ramallah, witnesses and medics said.

Medics at a Ramallah hospital said 30 people were brought to the hospital with various injuries, adding that four of them were in serious conditions.

Witnesses said the explosion occurred suddenly while some relatives and families were celebrating and dancing during the wedding ceremony in a wedding hall in the town of Termes'aya, north of Ramallah.

Britain's MI6 chief: Iran two years away from becoming nuclear power

In an unusually frank briefing to senior British civil servants, Sir John Sawers, the chief of MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence service said that British agents have been active against Iran's nuclear program since 2008. Despite their efforts though, Sawers said that Iran would likely achieve nuclear capability by 2014.

Israel's immigration police granted power to deport foreign activists from West Bank

The Israel Defense Forces issued a new order last week allowing inspectors from the Interior Ministry's enforcement unit to remove any foreigners who are found to be in the West Bank without a permit.

The step, which represents a further step in the military's actions against foreign activists, was struck down in the past by the High Court of Justice, on the grounds that the Interior Ministry inspectors do not have authority in the West Bank.

In exclusive interview, neo-Nazi recounts aiding Palestinians in Munich massacre

A popular German detective novelist accused of being directly involved in the 1972 Munich massacre apologized for his involvement in the attack and denied being a neo-Nazi in an interview with Haaretz earlier this week.

Willi Voss, who was revealed to be an accomplice to the massacre by a report compiled by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and was made public at the request of Der Spiegel, told Haaretz that he “is not a neo-Nazi and has never been.”

Municipality ‘hiding’ house demolitions in e. J'lem

The Jerusalem Municipality has manipulated the statistics of housing demolitions in east Jerusalem to make it look like fewer are taking place, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The policy of not including “self-demolitions” – where Arab families are threatened with staggering fines if they do not demolish their own houses – in the official count, has allowed Jerusalem to present a picture of a dramatic decrease in demolitions during Mayor Nir Barkat’s term.

Arab singer in Israeli spotlight after talent show win

A young Israeli Arab woman who won a popular Israeli TV music talent show has become an unlikely star in a country where suspicion and hostility often mark relations between Israel's minority Arab population and the Jewish majority.

Nissren Kader won first place on a programme that seeks to find the best singer of Mizrahi songs - the musical tradition of Middle Eastern Jews.

The past few months have been an incredible journey for Ms Kader, who used to work as a wedding singer in the coastal city of Haifa.

Ehud Olmert could be Israel's comeback kid – and make peace with Palestinians

The July 10 acquittal of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert from most of the corruption charges against him is a watershed moment for the Jewish state and, perhaps, for the whole region.

Who’s scared of Olmert?

What does the acquittal of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have to do with the law on military service equality? Well, in politics, just like in nature, one thing is related to another.

Attacks on Palestinians continue, but police only arrest leftist activists

Graffiti in Hebrew reading "death to Arabs" and "revenge" were found Wednesday night painted on a water tank in the eastern part of the Palestinian village of Susya in the southern Hebron Hills, not far from the settlement of Susya.

Similar slogans had been painted 10 days earlier on crumbling limestone along the road.

Postscript: OK, you’ve won; now what?

Now that we have the findings of the government-appointed advisory committee on the legality of Israeli “outposts” in the West Bank, a three-person handpicked by the prime minister which, not unsurprisingly, found that all settlement in the West Bank is legal.

Should the Church of England remain silent on Israel-Palestine?

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