The separation wall
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Austen Ivereigh - (Opinion) December 22, 2009 - 1:00am

Within spitting distance of the very spot Jesus Christ was born is one of the world's great monstrosities, "a symbol of everything wrong with the human heart" as the Archbishop of Canterbury described it when he saw it for himself.

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Obama the Just
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Mostafa Zein - (Opinion) December 22, 2009 - 1:00am

In 1996, or a year after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to sabotage the peace process, both at the time, and at present. The Clinton administration responded, threatening to reduce military assistance. He got angry. He rejected the pressure. He said, “If the Americans think they can buy us with this assistance, I have a plan to do without it in five years’ time.”

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Sheikh Salah banned from Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Hanan Greenberg - December 21, 2009 - 1:00am

GOC Homefront Command Major General Yair Golan issued an order Monday banning the head of the Islamic Movement's northern branch, Sheikh Raed Salah, from entering Jerusalem for three weeks. The IDF Spokesperson's Office stated that the restraining order is aimed at keeping peace in the city, and that the army plans to have it extended to six months if Salah does not successfully appeal the order within seven days.

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Israel settlements: rabbis say soldiers' loyalty to God trumps army orders
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - December 18, 2009 - 1:00am

In Israel, a standoff is escalating between the Israeli defense establishment and religious nationalists over the possible evacuation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. On Thursday, a group of rabbis published a letter saying a soldiers' loyalty to the divine takes precedence over their commanders.

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Babylon & Beyond
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
December 17, 2009 - 1:00am

Religion is the opiate of the masses, Karl Marx said. That might be true in some places, but in Israel, this drug induces dangerous hyperactivity. Always a scratch-of-the-surface away, religion is an emotional factor in conflict -- between Israel and the Palestinians, between Israelis and themselves. Recent days have provided one reminder after another.

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Palestinian village caught amid Israel settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Ben Hubbard - December 17, 2009 - 1:00am

The head of this Palestinian village can't scan the horizon without being reminded of everything his people have lost. From the roof of the village council building, Abdelnasser Bedawi can see six of the nine Israeli settlements and outposts that have sprung up on the surrounding hills in the last three decades, fencing in the village and keeping it from two-thirds of its land.

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Activists planning Temple Mount ascent
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Abe Selig - December 16, 2009 - 1:00am

A group of activists dedicated to bringing Jews to the Temple Mount told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that they were hoping to see hundreds of participants take part in a planned "mass pilgrimage" to the site scheduled for Thursday morning in honor of Hannuka, which celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple after it was recovered from Hellenist Greeks more than 2,000 years ago.

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Civilising the debate
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Keith Kahn-Harris - (Opinion) December 16, 2009 - 1:00am

Last Sunday's Observer finally broke a story about which rumours had been circulating for a while: Professor David Newman, a British-Israeli geographer at Ben Gurion University, Israel, received an astonishing couple of emails from Michael Gross, a British-Jewish businessman, philanthropist and member of the university's board of governors, threatening to "use whatever influence I have at BGU to have you thrown out" and, even more extraordinarily, saying "I hope you perish" and "the sooner you are removed from BGU and the face of the earth, the better."

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The Palestinians' opposite poles
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Howard Schneider - December 15, 2009 - 1:00am

Sami and Tayseer Barakat grew up together in the concrete warrens of this refugee camp in Gaza, but the common thread ends there. As young adults, Tayseer moved to the West Bank while Sami remained in Gaza. The choices have shaped the brothers' lives, values, prosperity and opportunities, and they have placed the two at very different points in what is now a three-way feud among Israelis and Palestinians.

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Akiva Eldar / U.S. tax dollars fund rabbi who excused killing gentile babies
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) December 15, 2009 - 1:00am

The White House condemns the torching of a mosque, yet respectable Americans contribute to a yeshiva whose rabbi said it's okay to kill gentile babies. It is no surprise that the American administration tacitly, if unenthusiastically, accepted the excuse that the map of national priority zones the cabinet approved on Sunday does not violate the decision to freeze construction in the settlements.

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