Border Crossings and Security | The American Task Force on Palestine

Deep in the Sinai, a looming Crisis Threatens Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Bradley Hope - February 1, 2012 - 1:00am

CAIRO // The owner of a Sinai Peninsula holiday resort taken over by a group of armed Bedouin is refusing to pay the four million Egyptian pound (Dh2.4m) ransom the tribesmen are demanding. Hesham Nessim, proprietor of the Aqua-Sun Resort 30km south of Egypt's border with Israel, says he will wait them out or retake his property with police help. His brother Fouad says the Bedouin should expect a long stand-off. "It would be easier to go to the moon than to get that money from my brother," he told The National.

Rethinking Israel’s border policy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by David Newman - (Opinion) January 30, 2012 - 1:00am

Speedily, and with a minimum of headlines, the government has constructed a new physical barrier between Israel and Egypt along almost the entire length of the border, from the Gaza Strip to Eilat. The barrier consists of parallel swathes of electrified barbed wire fence. Sophisticated surveillance ensures that any attempt to cross the border, cut the fence or tunnel underneath can be detected and an immediate response force dispatched.

Does helping Palestinians beautify the occupation?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - (Opinion) January 30, 2012 - 1:00am

There is a thorn in the side of the Israeli prohibitions industry, in the guise of several stubborn and persistent women of retirement age. In a word: nudniks. They are the MachsomWatch volunteers, who during the past seven years have been offering their persistence in order to appeal the travel ban that the Shin Bet security service imposes on Palestinians who seek work in Israel."

PA officials: Israeli border proposal a non-starter
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
January 27, 2012 - 1:00am

Palestinian officials said Friday that Israel's presentation of its ideas for border and security arrangements of a future Palestinian state at a meeting in Amman on Wednesday was a non-starter, envisaging a fenced-off territory of cantons that would preserve most Jewish settlements.

New Israeli search method at West Bank checkpoint worries Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - January 25, 2012 - 1:00am

Israel Police have begun implementing a new method of searching Palestinian vehicles through use of nausea-inducing chemicals at a Bethlehem checkpoint, international aid workers have reported. Since December, Israeli police officers have introduced what they call a sophisticated method of tracking explosive materials.

At Sundance, view of Israel ranges from critcal to abysmal
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Matthew Weinstein - (Analysis) January 23, 2012 - 1:00am

PARK CITY, Utah (JTA) – For Israel fans, it's all pain and anguish this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Unlike in years past at America’s top independent film fest, when feature films exploring the nuances of Israeli life offset some hard-hitting documentaries – such as in 2007 when the award-winning “Sweet Mud” contrasted with “Hothouse” – 2012 has no such leavening agents. At the venues in this mountainous ski town showing the films this week, the views of Israel range from critical to abysmal.

Reshaping territory: The story of Israel's shifting borders
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yossi Melman - (Book Review) January 16, 2012 - 1:00am

Borderline Choices by Uri Neeman and David Arbel. Yedioth Books ?(Hebrew) 271 pages, NIS 118. This is an intriguing book about Israel’s borders. To be more precise, about the decisions about peace and security that led to the determination of its elastic and still shifting borders.

Drivers Protest Israeli-only roads in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
by Jenny Baboun - January 11, 2012 - 1:00am

JERICHO (Ma'an) -- Around 60 people from across the West Bank on Tuesday tried to drive from Jericho to Ramallah on an Israeli-only road to protest Israel's restrictions on Palestinian movement. Popular resistance committees organized the motorcade of around 50 cars to protest the network of roads in the West Bank designated for the exclusive use of Jewish settlers. Committee spokesman Bashir Tamimi told Ma'an the protest aimed to send a message that the roads were built on Palestinian land and to protest settler attacks on Palestinians and holy places.

Israel Arrests 10 Palestinians in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from WAFA
January 11, 2012 - 1:00am

WEST BANK, Israeli forces Tuesday arrested 10 Palestinians from across the West Bank, according to security sources. In Jenin, Israeli forces arrested two Palestinians from Jenin refugee camp after raiding their houses, searching them and tampering with their contents, according to the sources. They also raided a garage and confiscated four cars. Forces also raided several Palestinian houses in Battir, a village west of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, searched them thoroughly and arrested three Palestinians, including a 16-years-old boy.

Israel has 101 different types of permits governing Palestinian movement
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Chaim Levinson - December 23, 2011 - 1:00am

Israel's Civil Administration issues 101 different types of permits to govern the movement of Palestinians, whether within the West Bank, between the West Bank and Israel or beyond the borders of the state, according to an agency document of which Haaretz obtained a copy. The most common permits are those allowing Palestinians to work in Israel, or in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Over the decades, however, the permit regimen has grown into a vast, triple-digit bureaucracy.

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