Security | The American Task Force on Palestine

A Warning Call
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post
by Ephraim Sneh - (Opinion) December 19, 2011 - 1:00am

In light of the damning IAEA report released in November, showing no equivocation regarding Iranian intentions for producing nuclear weapons, it is high time that the United States and Israel abandon their current policies and adopt a new joint strategy. Since 1993 I have been calling attention to the potential of a nuclear Iran, perhaps the most dangerous development in our region. Today we all understand that if Iran achieves nuclear military power, it is only a matter of time, a few years, before Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey will reach nuclear capacity as well.

Citing public safety, Israel orders closure of controversial walkway in Jerusalem’s Old City
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
December 12, 2011 - 1:00am

Israeli authorities have ordered the closure of a pedestrian walkway in Jerusalem’s Old City that has become a flashpoint for competing religious and political claims. Jerusalem municipality spokesman Stephan Miller said Monday the temporary ramp is dangerous and the city engineer ordered it closed. The walkway leads up to the sacred enclosure known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. It is used by Jews and tourists, while Muslims use other entrances.

'Peace treaty with Israel won't be revoked'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Roee Nahmias - (Opinion) December 4, 2011 - 1:00am

"Israel has no cause for concern – the peace treaty won't be revoked," Egyptian academic and journalist Mounir Mahmoud told Ynet over the phone on Sunday. "The country is going through its hardest period since the revolution – and I won't be exaggerating if I say – perhaps the hardest period it has known to date," Mahmoud noted. "We all hoped for a natural and smooth birth toward a true democracy in Egypt, but we were forced to undergo a cesarean section," he said, drawing a comparison between the birth of a newborn and the situation in post-Mubarak Egypt.

On Israel’s uneasy border with Egypt, a fence rises
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Joel Greenberg - December 2, 2011 - 1:00am

EILAT, Israel — A short drive north from this Red Sea resort town, a new reality is taking shape along Israel’s desert border with Egypt. A lonely frontier road flanked by a low rusting fence is buzzing with earth-moving equipment and workmen erecting an imposing steel barrier encased in razor wire that is gradually snaking across the desolate landscape.

Rockets fired across Lebanon, Israel border
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
(Analysis) November 29, 2011 - 1:00am

An exchange of rocket fire hit the Lebanese-Israeli border on Tuesday in the first such incident since 2009, coming at a time of heightened regional tensions over Syria and Iran's nuclear programme. UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, said at least one rocket was fired at northern Israel, prompting the Israeli army to return fire. The Lebanese army said Israel launched four rockets in return.

Israeli FM seeks to prevent airport security from humiliating foreign VIPs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
(Analysis) November 29, 2011 - 1:00am

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman wants to establish clear guidelines to avert embarrassing incidents between foreign diplomats and airport security personnel, the Ma'ariv daily reported Monday. The newspaper cited a letter Lieberman sent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which he warned "the humiliating treatment the guests received severely damages Israel's image in the world. All the efforts that are being invested in public diplomacy are going to waste."

Nearly 100% of all military court cases in West Bank end in conviction, Haaretz learns
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Chaim Levinson - (Analysis) November 29, 2011 - 1:00am

Virtually all - 99.74 percent, to be exact - of cases heard by the military courts in the territories end in a conviction, according to data in the military courts' annual report, which has been obtained by Haaretz. The report also shows that the military appeals courts decidedly favor the prosecution, with appeals court judges accepting 67 percent of appeals filed by the prosecution, as opposed to only 33 percent of appeals filed by the defense. Photo by: Limor Edri

The Arab Awakening and Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Thomas L. Friedman - (Opinion) November 29, 2011 - 1:00am

Israel is facing the biggest erosion of its strategic environment since its founding. It is alienated from its longtime ally Turkey. Its archenemy Iran is suspected of developing a nuclear bomb. The two strongest states on its border — Syria and Egypt — are being convulsed by revolutions. The two weakest states on its border — Gaza and Lebanon — are controlled by Hamas and Hezbollah.

'Price Tag' Attacks Pose Test for Israel
In Print by Ziad Asali - The Jewish Daily Forward (Opinion) - November 21, 2011 - 1:00am

Israeli society has been confronted recently by a troubling new trend: vigilante attacks by some settlers and their supporters against Palestinians in the occupied territories, Arab citizens of Israel and, increasingly, Israeli peace groups. These began as the settlers’ own form of retaliation — exacting a “price” for any Palestinian violence — but have devolved into a campaign of terror. Marauding bands of armed settlers have uprooted olive trees, burned mosques and schools, shot at cars, run over children.

Egypt nabs suspect believed linked to Eilat attack
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Oren Kessler, Reuters - (Analysis) November 13, 2011 - 1:00am

Egyptian authorities arrested a top member of an Islamist terror group suspected of involvement in pipeline bombings that have disrupted gas supplies to Israel and Jordan, Egyptian state media reported on Sunday. The Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported that the detainee, Mohammed al-Teehi, was also being investigated for an August terror attack in southern Israel that killed eight people. Teehi, of the armed Islamist group Al-Takfir Wa Al-Hijra (Excommunication and Exodus), was arrested in the northern coastal city of El-Arish, Egypt's news agency MENA reported.

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