Hundreds of settlers attack Nablus village
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 12, 2011 - 1:00am

Hundreds of settlers stormed the Nablus village of Asira al-Qibliya overnight Sunday, causing damage to Palestinian property. Witnesses told Ma'an that around midnight more than 200 settlers from the notorious Yitzhar settlement entered the village and threw rocks at Palestinian homes. Local resident Ibrahim Makhlouf said that the settlers smashed the windows of a bus and tried to set it on fire. “They were armed and wearing black uniform as if it was an organized militia,” he told Ma'an.

»

Israel's extremism is the reason
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) December 12, 2011 - 1:00am

The hard-line and extreme political position of the Israeli government, born from its right-wing composition, is creating immense contradictions between what this Israeli government can "accept" (and stay together) and what the international community seeking to restart the political process between Palestinians and Israelis expects. Israel has been solving this contradiction through evasion, doing whatever it takes to avoid any negotiations or engagement on matters of substance, especially if they involve a third party.

»

US 'disappointed' by new Israeli settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Google News
December 8, 2011 - 1:00am

WASHINGTON — The United States expressed disappointment Thursday over Israeli settlement activity after the approval of construction of a new Jewish enclave in annexed east Jerusalem. However, the US State Department also said that it opposed a call by the Palestinians to take the issue to the UN Security Council, where Washington vetoed in February a resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

»

Israel hands confiscation, demolition orders in Hebron
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 8, 2011 - 1:00am

HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces handed confiscation orders to ten landowners in villages near Hebron on Thursday, locals told Ma'an. The troops also handed demolition orders for 14 houses in southern Hebron village Susiya, residents said. Israeli authorities told four landowners in Surif village, which neighbors Susiya, that their land would be seized. The lands belong to Ismael Musa Othman Ighnnimat, Atef Atallah Ibrahim Ighnimat, Mohammad Abdullah Ahmad al-Qadi, and Mohammad Ibrahim al-Hour, a Ma'an reporter said.

»

Israel OKs new settler homes in East Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP)
December 8, 2011 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- Israel has approved construction of a new Jewish enclave in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood of annexed East Jerusalem, state-owned Channel One TV reported Wednesday. The channel said the 14-home project, to be named Maale David, was approved late Wednesday by the Jerusalem city council's planning committee and was likely to spark fresh international condemnation of Israel's settlements policy. It is to be sited in the Palestinian neighborhood of Ras al-Amud, near an existing Jewish settlement of 1,000 people, the report said.

»

Palestinian leadership turns to UN to halt Jewish settlement construction
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
December 8, 2011 - 1:00am

RAMALLAH, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) decided Wednesday to apply to the United Nations to freeze Jewish settlement activities. After a meeting in Ramallah, the PLO executive committee announced that it will go to the UN Security Council and the General Assembly to force Israel to commit to the two-state solution and stop settlement construction.

»

Settlers torch West Bank mosque
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 7, 2011 - 1:00am

SALFIT (Ma'an) -- A mosque was set on fire on Wednesday by settlers in the West Bank village of Bruqin, near Salfit, local officials said. The governor of Salfit Isam Abu Bakr told Ma'an that at 2.00 a.m. a number of settlers sprayed racist anti-Arab slogans on the mosque walls and torched a car belonging to local resident Muatasim Samarah. Abu Bakr said that the attack came "after Israeli forces issued demolition warrants against the mosque claiming it was built without a license."

»

Israel paving road to link East Jerusalem neighborhoods to city center
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - December 2, 2011 - 1:00am

The city of Jerusalem began works two weeks ago on a road that will connect the capital's northeastern neighborhoods to Jerusalem's main traffic artery, Menachem Begin Boulevard, as part of a policy to stregthen bonds between neighborhoods across the Green Line and the rest of the city. The neighborhoods to be connected by the new route are Pisgat Ze'ev, Neve Yaakov, Anatot, Shoafat, and Beit Hanina; the route 20 project will also link Jerusalem's northern neighborhoods with route 443, which in some places crosses through the West Bank.

»

Second Palestinian teenager found guilty in murder of settler family
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - (Blog) November 28, 2011 - 1:00am

An Israeli military court on Monday convicted a second Palestinian teenager of murder in the March deaths of five Jewish settlers, including three children, as they slept in their home. Conservative Israeli lawmaker Michael Ben-Ari repeatedly interrupted Monday's hearing, cursing the defendant, Amjad Awad, 19, and urging the judges to impose the death penalty. Prosecutors are recommending five life sentences. In September, Awad's cousin and co-defendant, Hakim Awad, 18, was given five terms in the slayings.

»

'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.

»


American Task Force on Palestine - 1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 725, Washington DC 20006 - Telephone: 202-262-0017