Hamas: Deal for Shalit release still a long way off
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Jack Khoury - December 15, 2009 - 1:00am

Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha said Tuesday that a prisoner exchange deal for the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces solider Gilad Shalit was still a long way off. President Shimon Peres told IDF soldiers Monday that the release Shalit did not depend solely on Israel, but was being hampered by disagreements between Hamas' wing in the Gaza Strip and its overseas wing.

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Palestinian tunnel tycoons feeding demand for banned goods
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - December 15, 2009 - 1:00am

Mahmoud is proud of the motorbike he bought two months ago for $700, now parked in the sand at the entrance of one of the tunnels used to smuggle the machines into Gaza. It is all the more precious these days. After an influx of bikes through the deep underground passages between Gaza and Egypt resulted in carnage on the roads by young, untrained riders, the Hamas government ordered the imports to stop.

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Gaza border: Why Egypt is building a steel underground wall
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Sarah A. Topol - December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

Reports that Egypt is building a steel underground wall along its border with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip have fueled speculation about what exactly Cairo intends to accomplish with the project, which British newspapers claim is being carried out with the help of the US Army Corps of Engineers.

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Israel: Who will soldiers obey on settlements – Netanyahu or rabbis?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

In an unprecedented move, Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday cut ties with one of the dozens of religious seminaries that feed students to the military amid concerns that its ideologically driven students might refuse orders to evacuate settlements. The military was concerned that the chief rabbi of the school, known as a “hesder” yeshiva and located in the West Bank settlement of Har Bracha, was educating students to become insubordinate soldiers.

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The moment of truth
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Issa Samander - December 14, 2009 - 1:00am

The US administration was very quick to announce its appreciation of the Israeli right-wing government's decision to temporarily and partially halt settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories. In doing so, Washington has only shown its weakness. If the US cannot convince Israel even to properly freeze settlement construction in occupied territory, then how will it convince Israel to dismantle settlements? And if that doesn't happen, what then for the two-state solution?

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'PA police cornerstone of future state'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Yaakov Lappin - December 10, 2009 - 1:00am

The development of a fully functioning Palestinian civilian police force is a crucial cornerstone for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the head of an EU mission set up to bolster Palestinian police in the West Bank said during a press conference in Ramallah on Wednesday. British Chief Constable (ret.) Paul Kernaghan, the outgoing head of the EU Police Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support (EUPOL COPPS), said his vision was "to see the Palestinian Civil Police [PCP] operating alone on the streets of Palestine."

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Popular Fatah Leader Complicates Prisoner Swap
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Wall Street Journal
by Charles Levinson - December 9, 2009 - 1:00am

Marwan Barghouti, the popular imprisoned Palestinian leader, embodies the promise and the peril Israel faces as it negotiates with Hamas to trade hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for a long-held Israeli soldier. Islamist Hamas says Mr. Barghouti tops the list of approximately 1,000 prisoners it is demanding Israel free in exchange for Sgt. Gilad Shalit, who Hamas has held captive in Gaza for more than three years.

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PA officer sentenced to death for collaboration
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 9, 2009 - 1:00am

A Palestinian military court in Ramallah sentenced a security officer to death by firing squad on Wednesday after he was found guilty of collaboration with Israel, Palestinian judicial sources said. Identified only by the initials AD, the condemned was sentenced to death in accordance with article 131 of the Palestinian Military Law of Punishment of 1979. The defendant confessed to having been recruited by the Israeli intelligence service in 1992 to spy on Palestinian activists and fellow security officers concerning armament and movement.

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Gaza sources: Swap deal up to Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ali Waked - December 9, 2009 - 1:00am

The implementation of a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas is waiting for an Israeli decision, according to Palestinian sources involved in the negotiations. "Our demands are clear. We made them clear to the German mediator and we have done all we can for the deal to executed," one of the Gaza sources told Ynet. Israel continues to keep silent about the deal. On Tuesday, a Palestinian source told Ynet that the German mediator has asked Hamas to refrain from leaking details of the prisoner swap deal to the Arab press.

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Israeli settlers threaten to make Palestinians 'pay the price' on the West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Telegraph
by Adrian Blomfield - December 9, 2009 - 1:00am

Mounting discontent over the building ban, announced at the end of November, has already manifested itself in a series of scuffles between egg-throwing settlers and Israeli police officers. But this week hardline Jewish activists have signalled a change of tactic by circulating calls for Palestinian civilians to pay the price for the settlement freeze.

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