Arabs in Israel | The American Task Force on Palestine

For Israel’s Arabs, sense of disenfranchisement as Israel marks 63rd birthday
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Dina Kraft - May 8, 2011 - 12:00am

In an elegant limestone building in a Jerusalem neighborhood that before 1948 was home to the city’s Palestinian elite, a group of Jewish and Arab Israeli academics recently tried to untangle one of Israel’s most complex and charged questions: the status of its Arab minority.

Arabs yearn to move on
In Print by Hussein Ibish - Bitterlemons (Blog) - April 30, 2011 - 12:00am

Probably the most important clause in the Arab Peace Initiative, first adopted by the Arab League at the Beirut summit in 2002 and reaffirmed on several occasions including in 2007, is its commitment to "establish normal relations with Israel in the context of [a] comprehensive peace." This represented the culmination of decades of evolution of Arab thinking regarding relations with Israel, and the final repudiation of the Khartoum resolution of 1967, which insisted the Arabs would have "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it".

Blowback: Israel's bogus narrative on Palestinian refugees
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Ghada Karmi - (Opinion) April 12, 2011 - 12:00am

Ghada Karmi, author of "In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story," responds to The Times' April 7 article on Lifta, the last intact pre-1948 Palestinian village.

Israel and Palestinians have conflicting visions for village's future
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - April 7, 2011 - 12:00am

It's easy to conjure the village that once was, hidden deep in a picturesque valley at the western gateway to Jerusalem, almost buried by blooming almond trees, tangled grapevines and a carpet of yellow wildflowers. The roofs and window shutters are long gone from the old stone houses, but decorative brickwork around the doorways and broken staircases bears witness to a bygone prosperity. The freshwater spring was paved over years ago, but the water still gurgles down the main road, just as it did more than 60 years ago.

100 women detained in Awarta
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
April 7, 2011 - 12:00am

Israeli troops stormed the village of Awarta on Thursday morning, arresting more than 100 women in what local officials said was part of the ongoing investigation into the murder of five settlers in March. Hundreds of troops entered Awarta - the village adjacent to Itamar, and illegal settlement where the murders took place - shortly after midnight and imposed a curfew after which they began rounding up the women, local council head Tayis Awwad said.

The bookseller of Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by B. Wasserstein - (Opinion) April 6, 2011 - 12:00am

It’s often the small injustices that stab us in the heart, even in a world of monstrous tsunamis, nuclear emergencies and despotic repression. Last week, Munther Fahmi told me he is in imminent danger of deportation. Fahmi, a friend for the past 15 years, is a bookseller in Jerusalem. One might better say he is the bookseller there, since his shop is almost the only serious foreign-language one left in a city that once boasted many.

46% of Israeli teens: Revoke Arabs' rights
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Tomer Velmer - March 31, 2011 - 12:00am

A new study examining Jewish and Arab Israeli teens' opinions on a wide range of issues shows nearly half of Jewish youths support revoking Arab-Israelis' basic rights. The study focused on such issues as nationalism, democracy and attitudes towards State institutions. The results: Israeli teens in 2010 believe less in democracy, are inclined towards rebelliousness and violence, are more racist and some have given up hope for peace. They are also more right-wing and patriotic.

'Burning Lieberman photos on Land Day is legitimate'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Yaakov Lappin - March 30, 2011 - 12:00am

Ahead of Land Day, in which Israeli Arabs carry out marches and rallies, police began to make security arrangements on Wednesday, described by a police spokesman as being standard deployments that are made every year. The majority of the arrangements were made in the northern district and the Jerusalem district, the spokesman added. MK Mohammad Barakeh (Hadash) said on Wednesday that burning pictures of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, as Arab protesters did at a Land Day protest in Lod, is legitimate.

Do Israel's recent efforts to bolster security undermine its democracy?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - March 29, 2011 - 12:00am

A flurry of votes in Israel’s parliament on controversial legislation affecting the country’s Arab minority is reigniting a debate about whether the right-leaning majority is trampling democratic norms in an effort to bolster the security of the Jewish state. The parliament, known as the Knesset, on Monday night passed into law an amendment to the country’s citizenship law to allow the state to strip the citizenship of anyone convicted of espionage, terrorism, or "disloyalty" to the state.

The ‘A-Word’ in Hebron
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Letty Cottin Pogrebin - (Opinion) March 23, 2011 - 12:00am

You’ve probably read about the situation in the West Bank city of Hebron, where some 800 Jewish settlers live in the midst of 170,000 Palestinians. But being there is something else. Being there can make you sick to your stomach; being there you can’t help thinking of the “A-word.”

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