Middle East News: World Press Roundup

NEWS: Palestinian officials say PM Fayyad will reshuffle his cabinet today, while Hamas condemns it as “illegal.” Palestinian “green” projects and environmentalist activists face numerous hurdles in the occupied territories. Palestine's chief corruption commissioner says Mohammed Rashid, a former financial adviser to the late Pres. Arafat, may have embezzled millions. Many Palestinians say the prisoners' hunger strike shows the potential for nonviolence to be effective against abusive Israeli policies. Israel says it has created mechanisms to get aid to Palestinians in the event of an earthquake. Israel's Interior Minister Yishai says all African migrants should be jailed. The Knesset approves another $12 million for settlement funding. Calls to abandon the two-state solution and the peace process in favor of imaginative alternatives are gaining ground. Jerusalem’s Al-Makassed hospital faces an acute cash crisis. ATFP Senior Research Fellow Hussein Ibish debates Reza Aslan at UCLA on the future of Israel and the Palestinians. COMMENTARY: Bradley Burston says Israelis should pay careful attention to the Nakba Day commentary by ATFP Pres. Ziad Asali. Benedetta Berti says, through hunger striking, Palestinians may have discovered the power of nonviolent protest. Zvi Bar'el says Israel isn't annexing settlements, it's the settlers who are annexing Israel. Chemi Shalev describes a lively debate between J Street's Jeremy Ben-Ami and William Kristol of the Emergency Committee for Israel. The Independent looks at a new play by A B Yehoshua on Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky. Osama Al Sharif says the "Arab Spring" has not been helpful to the Palestinians. Rami Khouri says, as the Palestinian struggle continues, we should expect more innovative measures such as international BDS and hunger striking. Hanan Ashrawi agrees that the hunger strikers have set an example that will probably be emulated in other nonviolent ways. Alex Fishman says the situation between Israel and the Palestinians is becoming explosive.

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Officials: Palestinian PM reshuffles Cabinet ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press by Karin Laub - May 16, 2012 - 12:00am RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian officials say Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is replacing almost half of his West Bank-based Cabinet. The reshuffle is a clear sign that efforts to end the Palestinian political split and blend separate governments in the West Bank and Gaza are stuck. The West Bank is run by internationally backed pragmatists while the militant Hamas is in charge in Gaza since a violent 2007 takeover. A Palestinian unity deal has been held up by repeated disagreements. » Read more

Hamas condemns PA cabinet reshuffle ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency May 16, 2012 - 12:00am BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) – The reshuffled Palestinian Authority government will be sworn in Wednesday at 6 p.m. officials said, in a move that Hamas condemned and labeled illegitimate. This is the second reshuffle for the Ramallah-based government which was first established in June 2007 under Salam Fayyad. In the new government, Fayyad is expected to lose his post as finance minister. Other changes include a new portfolio for Jerusalem while the education ministry will be split from the higher education post. » Read more

Palestinians face hurdles to a greener West Bank ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press by Daniella Cheslow - May 16, 2012 - 12:00am RAMALLAH, West Bank — After years of neglect, the Palestinians are going green. In a society preoccupied with the struggle for independence from Israel, protecting the environment has often been sidelined — as evidenced by the ubiquitous sight of burning trash and piles of garbage bags on sidewalks in this city of 30,000 north of Jerusalem. » Read more

Palestinian anti-corruption chief: Aide of late leader Arafat suspected of stealing millions ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press May 16, 2012 - 12:00am RAMALLAH, West Bank — The shadowy financial adviser of the late Yasser Arafat is being sought on suspicion he stole millions of dollars in public funds, the top Palestinian anti-corruption campaigner said Wednesday. It is the highest profile investigation since President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority established an Anti-Corruption Commission and a special court two years ago to deal with such cases, the panel’s chief, Rafik Natche, told The Associated Press. » Read more

Palestinian prisoner deal shows non-violence works ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Ali Sawafta - May 16, 2012 - 12:00am RAMALLAH, West Bank, May 15 (Reuters) - Standing up to Israel through non-violent resistance can produce encouraging results, Palestinians said on Tuesday, after a prisoner hunger strike produced some Israeli concessions. The deal under which some 1,600 Palestinian prisoners agreed on Monday to end a month-long fast against Israel's prison policy was struck on the eve of Nakba (catastrophe) Day that marks Israel's founding in a 1948 war when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes. » Read more

Israel plans for quake aid to Palestinians ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Dan Williams - May 15, 2012 - 12:00am TEL AVIV, May 15 (Reuters) - Israel said on Tuesday it had set up a mechanism to get aid to the Palestinians in the event of a major earthquake. A 5.5-magnitude quake rattled Israel and the occupied West Bank on Friday, reminding residents of their vulnerability to the Syria-African Rift, a northern extension of Africa's Rift Valley. "The working assumption is that they (Palestinians) do not have the means to deal with such a disaster on their own," said Alon Rozen, director-general of Israel's Civil Defence Ministry. » Read more

Israel's Interior Minister: All African migrants should be jailed ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz May 16, 2012 - 12:00am Israel's Interior Minister Eli Yishai said on Wednesday that most of the migrants from Africa are engaged in criminal actions and should be placed in detention facilities. Yishai said that Israel is willing to provide financial assistance for migrants to leave. In an interview with Army Radio, Yishai differentiated between refugees and asylum seekers, saying that "whoever is considered a refugee, and there are few, can stay. One cannot forsake the security of Israelis." » Read more

Settlements to get NIS 44M ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Zvi Lavi - May 16, 2012 - 12:00am The Knesset's Finance Committee on Tuesday approved the allocation of NIS 44 million (roughly $12 million) in favor of West Bank settlements. Some NIS 17 million of the NIS 44 million will serve as compensation for the Migron evacuees. » Read more

Time to Abandon Stalled Peace Process? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Nathan Guttman - May 16, 2012 - 12:00am Washington — Once seen as heresy, proposals for bypassing the Middle East peace process — or even jettisoning a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — are increasingly making their way into mainstream discourse while the peace process itself remains mired in a deep freeze. The spectrum of ideas now being voiced in prominent and respected political quarters range from unilateral steps to be taken by either side, to abandoning the two-decades-old peace process altogether. » Read more

Ailing Palestinian Hospital Awaits Cash Infusion ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line by Arieh O'Sullivan - May 16, 2012 - 12:00am Husni Samara is a gynecologist and endoscopic surgeon at Al-Makassed hospital on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives. Even though he has a family to support and hasn’t been paid in months, he won’t consider lucrative offers from abroad. » Read more

UCLA’s “one state or two” debate ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Journal by Jonah Lowenfeld - May 15, 2012 - 12:00am For anyone who missed the debate on May 15 at UCLA between Reza Aslan and Hussein Ibish over whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be resolved by creating a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish one or by creating a single bi-national state, here’s the basic report of what went down. » Read more

Thank you, Russian immigrant to Israel, for Nakba Day ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Bradley Burston - (Opinion) May 15, 2012 - 12:00am It is customary for our people to honor fast days, memorial days and festivals by studying commentaries on their origins, the symbols and rituals of their observance, and the ways in which they connect to our own lives. » Read more

Palestinian hunger strikes: the power of peaceful protest ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Benedetta Berti - (Opinion) May 15, 2012 - 12:00am It may not have received much international attention, but Palestinian hunger strikes, which ended on May 14, have the potential to shake the status quo of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That potential lies in the nonviolent nature of the strikes, which were carried out by Palestinians in Israeli detention, backed by grass-roots organizers, and concluded with Israel agreeing to improve prison conditions. » Read more

Annexing Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Zvi Barel - (Opinion) May 16, 2012 - 12:00am You could, of course, be horrified at the bill to annex the West Bank settlements to the State of Israel, sponsored by MK Miri Regev (Likud ). But it's not mandatory. You could also welcome the miracle - the finger of God Himself - that caused Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman to come to his senses at the very last moment and oppose it (by abstaining only ), but that too is superfluous. Even the chilling thought of what would have happened had the bill been passed, what kind of world war it would have brought upon Israel, is of no consequence now. » Read more

J Street's Ben-Ami: 'U.S. Congressmen live in fear of pro-Israeli intimidation' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Chemi Shalev - (Opinion) May 16, 2012 - 12:00am Many American senators and congressmen “keep quiet” and refrain from criticizing Israeli policies because they “live in fear” and are “intimidated” by pro-Israeli groups such as the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), according to J Street founder and President Jeremy Ben-Ami. » Read more

A tale of two Zionists: Ze'ev Jabotinsky, David Ben Gurion and the dramatic origins of Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by Donald MacIntyre - (Opinion) May 16, 2012 - 12:00am Two charismatic men born in Eastern Europe meet in 1934, first in a London hotel room and then in a Golders Green flat, to resolve their political differences in the shadow of the rise of Nazism. Within 15 years, one of them, who more than once interrupts the argument by reciting his own Hebrew translation of Edgar Allen Poe's darkly mysterious poem The Raven, will have died in exile. » Read more

Arab Spring and the Nakbeh ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times by Osama Al-Sharif - (Opinion) May 15, 2012 - 12:00am The Arab Spring has not been good to the Palestinian cause. It has deflected attention from Israel’s nefarious scheme to bypass the two-state solution by enforcing a unilateral settlement on the Palestinians. » Read more

The Palestinian struggle persists ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) May 16, 2012 - 12:00am Yesterday marked the 64th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba of May 1948, when Israel was established and Palestinians experienced the combination of exile and occupation that still defines them today. » Read more

Prisoners of Process ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Hanan Ashrawi - (Opinion) May 15, 2012 - 12:00am Two days ago the news of an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian prisoners to end the hunger-strike broke. The prisoners, most of whom have been without food for a month, won the right to have Gazan family visit them in prison (such visits have been denied for the past seven years) and the release of roughly 20 prisoners from solitary confinement into the general prison population (one prisoner has been in solitary confinement for almost a decade). » Read more

'The Palestinians Can Wait' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor by Alex Fishman - (Opinion) May 7, 2012 - 12:00am The coordinator of government activities in the Palestinian territories, Brigadier-General Eitan Dangot, has asked that the government approve an additional 5,000 permits for Palestinian laborers to enter Israel. That’s good for everyone. Politically, it’s good for Israel. Economically, it’s good for the Palestinian Authority. From a security perspective, it’s not a problem. » Read more

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