Our Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from International Herald Tribune
by Shmuel Rosner - (Blog) October 3, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — A week ago, just days before his U.N. speech, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met a small number of so-called American Jewish leaders. It wasn’t the first time he tried to talk with a group that supposedly holds sway with both American and Israeli audiences.

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For first time, Israeli state agency opposes segment of West Bank separation fence
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Zafrir Rinat - September 13, 2012 - 12:00am

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority has reneged on its consent to construction of the separation fence near the Palestinian village of Battir, south of Jerusalem. It is the first time a government agency has expressed opposition to the construction of a segment of the fence. In a document sent recently to the Defense Ministry, the INPA cited damage to the landscape and to relations with residents of the Palestinian village, and demanded that the Defense Ministry find an alternative way of ensuring security in the area.

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Land Day and Gaza’s Hamas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Abdullah Iskandar - (Opinion) April 1, 2012 - 12:00am

Two days ago, Palestinians commemorated Land Day, when on March 30, 1967, Israeli forces stormed the towns of Galilee and confronted with gunfire their Arab inhabitants who were protesting the Judaization of their region. This day has represented for the Palestinians a declaration of their attachment to their identity, their freedom and their land, not just their rejection of the occupation and its practices.

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Israeli deputy FM: Arab demos 'diplomatic terror'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
March 31, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — Israel's deputy foreign minister says an annual protest Palestinians mounted over the weekend is "political terrorism." Danny Ayalon spoke Saturday in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. He said Land Day protests are "a continuation of the diplomatic terrorism (Palestinian Authority President) Abu Mazen is using against Israel in international forums."

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Open letter to Michael Oren ahead of Easter
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
(Opinion) March 28, 2012 - 12:00am

As Christian leaders in Palestine, we were appalled by the baseless allegations you published in the Wall Street Journal on March 9. Your attempt to blame the difficult reality that Palestinian Christians face on Palestinian Muslims is a shameful manipulation of the facts intended to mask the damage that Israel has done to our community. As has been stated in our Kairos document, we Palestinian Christians declare that “the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is a sin against God and humanity because it deprives Palestinians of their basic human rights, bestowed by God.”

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Palestinian PM: Israel's West Bank separation fence will fall like Berlin Wall
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA)
October 4, 2011 - 12:00am

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad Monday said the half-concrete, half fence barrier Israel is building along the West Bank will fall just as the Berlin Wall did. Speaking at a reception at the German Representative Office in Ramallah to mark the Day of German Unity, Fayyad said the barrier, which in places snakes deep into the West Bank, "is going to fall under the will of the Palestinian people just as the Berlin wall had fallen under the will of the German people who wanted to reunite their country."

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Israel's West Bank dilemma
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The San Francisco Chronicle
by Joel Brinkley - (Opinion) August 14, 2011 - 12:00am

Shaul Goldstein knows that most everyone on Earth dislikes him and his kind. For some, it's visceral hatred. For others, he represents the largest obstacle to solving a problem everyone everywhere wants resolved. "We are the enemy of the world," he volunteered without any prompting. "We have to hide behind a curtain."

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Justified, despite the many mistakes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) August 8, 2011 - 12:00am

Successive Israeli governments since those of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have made nearly every mistake possible in creating the West Bank security fence. Yet the fence has not only served its original security purpose well; it has also delineated the broad outline of a future Israeli-Palestinian border everywhere in the West Bank except Jerusalem.

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Illegal, unjust and ultimately destructive
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) August 8, 2011 - 12:00am

Ten years after Israel started building a Wall in the occupied West Bank, the project has not proven Israeli arguments in its defense, but rather illustrated the Palestinian view that this is one more component of illegal Israeli settlement expansion. Israel, for the most part, said that the Wall was needed for its security. In response, Palestinians asked why then it was built to incorporate settlements into Israel, rather than on the internationally-recognized 1967 borders between Israel and the West Bank.

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AN ISRAELI VIEW Building a future border
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by David Newman - (Opinion) August 8, 2011 - 12:00am

The construction of the West Bank barrier has, in reality, been the construction of a border between Israel and a future state of Palestine. This does not mean that the location of the barrier will remain in situ and that there will not be changes in its course if and when a formal agreement is reached.

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