Sephardi leader Yosef: Non-Jews exist to serve Jews
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
October 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli Sephardic leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in his weekly Saturday night sermon said that non-Jews exist to serve Jews. “Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world; only to serve the People of Israel,” he said during a public discussion of what kind of work non-Jews are allowed to perform on Shabbat. "Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat," he said to some laughter.

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Israel's right needs perpetual war
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Zeev Sternhell - (Opinion) October 15, 2010 - 12:00am

The facts must be acknowledged: The heads of the rightist parties have a strategic outlook and the ability to take the long view, and they also know how to choose the right tools to carry out their mission.

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Ruth Gavison: Loyalty declaration bill is bad legislation
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Dan Izenberg - October 15, 2010 - 12:00am

Hebrew University law professor Ruth Gavison, an outspoken supporter of characterizing Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview Wednesday that she was opposed to the loyalty oath bill approved in the cabinet earlier this week. “It is possible to unequivocally support [the characterization of] Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, as I do, and still think that this bill, at this time, in this fashion and in this context, is a bad move,” she said.

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Postcard From Palestine
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Nation
by Christopher Hayes - (Opinion) October 14, 2010 - 12:00am

The first thing you notice when you drive into Hebron is the lack of cars. Since 1997 this second-largest Palestinian city in the West Bank, the only one with an Israeli settlement in its midst, has been formally divided. Within the Israeli section, which takes up much of the historic downtown, Palestinians are not allowed to drive, so they walk or use donkey carts. When people are ill or injured, they are carried to the hospital. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of the 30,000 Palestinians who once lived here have moved out.

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Imam from Nazareth suspected of supporting terror groups
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Jack Khoury - October 6, 2010 - 12:00am

Shin Bet forces arrested two Israeli Arabs, residents of Nazareth, on suspicion of supporting terror groups, illegal unionizing, and plotting to commit crimes, according to information released on Wednesday. The two men, Sheikh Nazem Abu Salim and Mohammed Naarani, will be tried in the Nazareth Magistrate's court, which issued a gag order on the details of the investigation.

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Rabbis replace Korans at burned mosque in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Joel Greenberg - October 5, 2010 - 12:00am

In a rare act of conciliation Tuesday, a group of rabbis from Jewish settlements near the Palestinian town of Beit Fajar visited a mosque there that had been torched by arsonists and brought Korans to replace those burned in the blaze. The attackers, who struck early Monday, left behind Hebrew graffiti and are suspected to be radical Jewish settlers. The rabbis, from the Gush Etzion cluster of settlements south of Bethlehem, arrived in a convoy of Israeli military government jeeps escorted by Palestinian police.

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Korans burnt in West Bank mosque attack
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Douglas Hamilton - October 4, 2010 - 12:00am

BEIT FAJJAR, West Bank, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Jewish settlers opposed to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians were accused of setting fire to a mosque in the West Bank on Monday, burning the Koran and scrawling threats in Hebrew on its walls. "Mosques, we burn," said a warning scribbled at the door of the smoke-smudged mosque of Beit Fajjar south of Bethlehem on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed for cool heads to avert the collapse of U.S.-brokered peace talks.

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Jewish settlers claim biblical birthright to land
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Maayan Lubell - September 27, 2010 - 12:00am

YITZHAR, West Bank, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Jewish settler Avraham Binyamin says any Israeli withdrawal from occupied land would be like severing a limb from his body. As one of some 300,000 Israelis living in enclaves built on West Bank land that Palestinians seek for a state, Binyamin expresses a view held by many that the area is a Jewish biblical birthright and must never be relinquished, not even for peace.

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Divided city of Hebron shows challenge of peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Tom Perry - September 26, 2010 - 12:00am

The growth of a Jewish settlement next to Hany Abu Haykel's home means the Palestinian needs an Israeli permit to use his front gate. Hardly anyone visits, he says. Guests need permission to reach the house where he was born 41 years ago, in an old neighbourhood of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank. Abu Haykel's family must trek through an olive grove patrolled by Israeli soldiers to enter the house the back way.

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The bad gift that keeps giving
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Daoud Kuttab - (Opinion) September 23, 2010 - 12:00am

Just when one thought that the direct peace talks might be able to produce a breakthrough, one got an awakening jolt. Crossing the bridge over the Jordan River must be the world's worst gift that keeps giving. This gift has been giving grief, anger, frustration and an overall realisation of what the occupation is all about. September 18 is a case in point. Palestinians, and others, wishing to cross the nearly dried up river into the West Bank faced over 10 hours of unnecessary wait. Women, men, senior citizens and infants were caught up in this 44-year-old continuous drama.

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