Home demolition leaves mother, four children homeless
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Maher Abukhater - July 13, 2010 - 12:00am

Dalal Rajabi, a mother of four children, came home Tuesday to find that her modest two-room house that has sheltered her family for two years had been razed. A team of Jerusalem municipal workers protected by a large police force came to the Rajabis' 200-square-foot home in Beit Hanina, an East Jerusalem Arab neighborhood, broke down the main door, took the furniture out and proceeded to demolish it. Dalal Rajabi was not home at the time. She had left the house to take her son to see a doctor when the workers and a bulldozer arrived.

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Palestinian village to be encircled by barrier
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Karin Laub - July 10, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel has started construction on a new section of its West Bank separation barrier that Palestinian residents say could sound a death knell for their hamlet. The barrier, running much of the length of the West Bank, has already disrupted lives in many Palestinian towns and villages in its path. But it threatens to outright smother Walajeh: The community of about 2,000 on the southwest edge of Jerusalem is to be completely encircled by a fence cutting it off from most of its open land, according to an Israeli Defense Ministry map.

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Bil'in leader remains in jail after term ends
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
July 9, 2010 - 12:00am

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Bil'in protest leader Adeeb Abu Rahma is being held in Israeli custody until the prosecution's appeal against him is heard, despite having served his term in full, a statement read Friday. Abu Rahma, a taxi driver and organizer of the weekly anti wall protests in the central West Bank village of Bil'in near Ramallah, was sentenced to 12 months, a further 12 months of suspended sentence, and ordered to pay a fine on Thursday, in the first of a series of trials against Palestinian protest organizers.

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Palestinians face being walled by Israeli security barrier
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - July 9, 2010 - 12:00am

Sixty-three-year-old Ahmed Bargouth sits in the shade of a walnut tree and contemplates the view before him. Across the valley is Jerusalem's zoo, which his grandchildren have never been able to visit, although they have watched animals through binoculars.

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The Summit of Misleading
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Zuheir Kseibati - (Blog) July 9, 2010 - 12:00am

One cannot deny Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s success in clearing his page with American President Barack Obama, assuming it was darkened not due to the killing of the Turks on the Freedom Flotilla, but also due to the embarrassment caused to the White House and the besieging of its efforts to revive the Palestinian negotiations track with an endless series of settlement projects.

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Netanyahu signals no extension of settlement freeze
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Jeffrey Heller - July 9, 2010 - 12:00am

NEW YORK, July 8 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled on Thursday he would not extend beyond September a 10-month moratorium on new housing starts in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. "I think we've done enough. Let's get on with the talks," he said, when asked in an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations whether he would extend the limited freeze he put in place to coax the Palestinians into peace negotiations.

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Obama ignores the obvious by backing Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) July 8, 2010 - 12:00am

In observing Israeli leaders and their much-touted peace overtures over the years, it has always been wise to hew to the maxim: “Watch what they do, not what they say.” The reason, of course, is that Israeli officials are marvellously adept at telling outsiders keen on a just and fair settlement with the Palestinians exactly what they want to hear – even as they condone and carry out measures that undermine such a settlement.

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B'Tselem: Settlements must be evacuated
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
July 6, 2010 - 12:00am

Forty-two percent of the West Bank is governed by settlement councils, Israeli rights organization B'Tselem revealed in a new settlements study, published Tuesday. Released as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to meet with US President Barack Obama in Washington, the report By Hook and by Crook: Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank, uses government reports, Civil Administration maps and military documents to compile a picture of "the mechanisms used to gain Israeli control of land in the West Bank."

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PA wraps up store-to-store campaign
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
July 6, 2010 - 12:00am

After visiting most of the shops in the West Bank, Palestinian Authority Minister of the Economy Hassan Abu Lubda said the "store-to-store" campaign promoting the boycott of settlement goods had come to an end. A statement announced the end of the project, which saw hundreds of volunteers coordinated by government and bodies to go to shops - mostly food and mini-markets - with lists of goods produced in settlements and promoting the government-led boycott.

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On Netanyahu's map of concerns there is no room for neighbors
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - July 6, 2010 - 12:00am

Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog was quoted in these pages over three months ago as saying: "The diplomatic issue is the main thing keeping us in the government, because we have a genuine wish to reach a breakthrough with the Palestinians and the Syrians." ("What is the Labor Party still doing in a right-wing government?" March 22 ). "And we see the possibility of ending this partnership if there is no change of direction in the coming months," Herzog, one of the top members of the Labor Party, added assertively during that interview given to Aluf Benn.

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