Top Israeli rabbi slams anti-Arab edict
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
December 10, 2010 - 1:00am

A top Israeli rabbi has condemned a controversial ruling forbidding renting or selling property to non-Jews. That ruling, which won the support of three dozen rabbis this week, has drawn vocal criticism in Israel. Israel's attorney general is weighing possible charges against the rabbis. Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv — considered the top rabbinic authority for many ultra-Orthodox Jews — weighed in against those rabbis on Thursday.

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Top Israel rabbis: Don't sell property to non-Jews
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Amy Teibel - December 7, 2010 - 1:00am

Three dozen top Israeli rabbis threw their support Tuesday behind a religious ruling barring Jews from selling or renting homes to non-Jews — an indication of growing radicalism within the rabbinical community at a time of mounting friction between Israeli Arabs and Jews.

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Auschwitz borders are here
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Bradley Burston - (Opinion) December 6, 2010 - 1:00am

Auschwitz borders. That ominous phrase, so elegant in its horror. A go-to mantra of the right for more than four decades, it has proven so durable in linking a West Bank withdrawal to the annihilation of the State of Israel that it has outlasted countless anti-peace process ad campaigns ?(“Yesha zeh kan” the ubiquitous signs once read: Judea, Samaria and Gaza are right here?).

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HRW urges PA to release West Bank blogger
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 5, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Human Rights Watch on Sunday urged the Palestinian Authority to release a blogger detained over his religious opinions. PA intelligence officers arrested Walid Hasayin on 31 October at an internet cafe in the West Bank city of Qalqiliya. Ahmad Mbayyad, the head of the PA's military judiciary, told HRW that Hasayin was suspected of posting online messages criticizing Islam and other religions.

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Mideast Conflict Plays Out In A House Divided
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from National Public Radio (NPR)
by Lourdes Garcia-Navarro - December 3, 2010 - 1:00am

On the surface, Jerusalem's Old City seems like the ideal melting pot of cultures and religions. Muslims, Christians and Jews live in this ancient walled enclave of less than half a square mile. It is a place that seems so removed from the modern world that surrounds it, and yet is so intrinsically a part of it. But an undercover war is being waged here: The Old City is the beating heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and everyone wants a piece of it. 'Revival Of Jewish Life'

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A Crisis in the Heart of Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Hussein Shobokshi - (Opinion) November 28, 2010 - 1:00am

Ever since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, its media has been trying to sell the idea that Israel is a secular state that brought together its children from the Diaspora, returning them to the Promised Land, as was promised in their scriptures and religious teachings where they can live their lives according to socialist principles in collective communities called Kibbutzim [or a Kibbutz]. This is a Yiddish language word which was spoken predominately by Jews in Eastern Europe.

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Eviction of Palestinian Family, After a Legal Battle, Underlines Tensions Over Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - November 24, 2010 - 1:00am

Israeli police officers evicted a Palestinian family from their home in a predominantly Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Tuesday morning, and a group of Jewish settlers moved into the property at night. The episode struck one of the more sensitive nerves in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship at a time of increasing tension and as the Obama administration is working to restart stalled peace negotiations. Such evictions have drawn international condemnation in the past.

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Israel approves millions of dollars for Western Wall facelift
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
November 22, 2010 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Israel on Sunday approved a plan to develop Jerusalem's Western Wall plaza which will cost 85 million shekels (about 23 million U.S. dollars), citing preservation of archaeological sites and the need to upgrade aging infrastructure as its main goals. The plan, slated to stretch from 2011 to 2015, is a "direct continuation of a plan that was approved in 2004," the Israeli Prime Minister's Office said in a statement following the cabinet' s weekly meeting on Sunday.

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As Netanyahu pushes for settlement freeze deal, suburban Ariel could be sticking point
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - (Analysis) November 21, 2010 - 1:00am

Ariel, West Bank With some 20,000 residents, a new performing arts center, and a university-in-the-making, this sprawling suburb has fashioned itself as an everyday Israeli city rather than a settlement of religious fundamentalists. But because Ariel, the fourth-largest Jewish settlement, is located 11 miles deep into the West Bank, it could prove to be one of the thorniest points of contention in border negotiations that the US hopes will give momentum to stalled peace efforts.

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Nationalists are turning Zionism into a childish religion
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Doron Rosenblum - November 19, 2010 - 1:00am

The crowds of ministers and deputy ministers who surround Benjamin Netanyahu in their multitudes under the overall name "the government of Israel" sometimes seem like participants in a cantata or review: Every now and then, one of them gets up from among the semi-anonymous heads to make his voice heard - one with a trill in favor of annexation, another in a racist etude, yet another in an ethnocentric sermon, and another with a rational chirp. When one sits down, the next soloist gets up, while the Chorus of the Rock of our Existence follows him with background humming.

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