Middle East News: World Press Roundup

NEWS: The Vatican denies it is considering changing its stance on occupied East Jerusalem. The Israeli military suspends a soldier videotaped throwing stones and shooting at Palestinians. Palestinian laborers protest at an Israeli checkpoint in the occupied West Bank. An Israeli government report harshly criticizes PM Netanyahu's and DM Barak's decision-making regarding the deadly flotilla incident ywo years ago. Israeli occupation forces plan to demolish an entire village near Hebron. FIFA urges the Israeli FA to take up the issue of a hunger striking Palestinian soccer player. A Fatah official says Israeli settlement expansion may push the Palestinians back towards the UN. Israel is seeking to block the PA from registering the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem under Palestine at an upcoming World Heritage Committee meeting. A bipartisan letter by US House members seeks the release of convicted Israeli spy Pollard. Jordanian Muslim Brothers lead a humanitarian aid delegation to Gaza. The uproar over the Ulpana settlement outpost was the result of Palestinian legal action in Israeli courts. Jordan presses the US to reengage the Israeli-Palestinian issue before the November elections. COMMENTARY: ATFP Pres. Ziad Asali says, in order for Palestinians and Israelis to honor their tragic histories, they must work for peace. Xinhua interviews Chief Palestinian negotiator Erekat. Amira Hass says it's not Netanyahu who needs warnings from experts about a possible third intifada, but the Israeli public. Gershon Baskin says Israelis should understand what it means for Palestinians to still be committed to peace. Howard Brenton says it's time for all parties to stop harassment and detention of members of Jenin's Freedom theatre. Kathleen Paratis says, with negotiations at an impasse, unilateralism may be the only way forward. Micah Stein makes the case for Israel deporting African migrants. Tablet interviews Norman Finkelstein.

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Vatican denies it will recognize East Jerusalem ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Philip Pullella - June 12, 2012 - 12:00am The Vatican said on Tuesday that an economic agreement it is negotiating with Israel will not mean the de facto recognition of Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem. The Vatican was responding to reports in Palestinian media that the deal, which involves tax status and other financial issues concerning Church properties in the Holy Land, would result in a recognition of Israel's control of East Jerusalem. » Read more

Israeli army suspends officer over live fire in stone throwing incident ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua June 13, 2012 - 12:00am The Israeli army on Wednesday told Xinhua it was probing a recent clash between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in northern West Bank, in which an Israeli officer fired his rifle towards Palestinian rock-throwers without authorization. » Read more

West Bank workers protest at Israeli crossing point ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua June 13, 2012 - 12:00am Hundreds of Palestinian workers demonstrated in front of an Israeli crossing point in the West Bank Wednesday, demanding Israeli forces to treat them better when they pass through. The workers suspended the movement through al-Jalama crossing between Jenin City and Israel for two hours, an official from the Palestinian Workers Union said. » Read more

Israel government report criticizes Netanyahu decision-making in naval raid on Gaza-bound ship ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press June 13, 2012 - 12:00am Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision-making was badly flawed as he oversaw a deadly Israeli naval raid on a Gaza-bound ship two years ago, according to a government report released Wednesday. The harsh findings were an embarrassing assessment of Netanyahu’s handling of a military operation that sent Israel’s relations with once-close ally Turkey plummeting and drew widespread international condemnation. » Read more

Israeli forces order Hebron village demolished after settler case ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency June 13, 2012 - 12:00am Israeli forces on Tuesday handed a southern West Bank village demolition orders for each of its 50 buildings, a week after Israeli authorities agreed to halt all construction in the area in response to a petition filed by a settler group. Susiya village, in the south Hebron hills, has three days to appeal the decision before their village is demolished, resident Nasser Nawaja told Ma'an. The community's lawyer Quamar Mishirqi said she will file an objection to Israel's High Court. » Read more

FIFA urges support for Mahmoud al-Sarsak ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency June 13, 2012 - 12:00am FIFA on Tuesday urgently called on the Israeli Football Association to raise the plight of detained hunger-striking soccer player Mahmoud al-Sarsak with Israeli authorities. Al-Sarsak has been on hunger strike for 86 days to demand his release. He has been imprisoned by Israel without charge or trial since July 2009. FIFA urged IFA to draw attention to al-Sarsak's situation "with the aim of ensuring the physical integrity of the concerned players as well as their right for due process," a report on its website said. » Read more

Fatah official: Israeli govt's settler push renews UN option ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency June 13, 2012 - 12:00am A Fatah official warned on Tuesday that the Israeli government is working for the interests of settlers, leaving the Palestinian Authority in an impasse that pushes UN membership to the fore again. Fatah Central Committee member Mahmoud al-Aloul told Ma'an that the cabinet led by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu did not show any interest in negotiations, but is dominated by pushing settlement activities. » Read more

Israel seeks to block listing church in 'Palestine' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Tovah Lazaroff - June 13, 2012 - 12:00am Israel is working to block a bid by the Palestinian Authority to register the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem under the country of Palestine, when the World Heritage Committee meets in Russia from June 24 to July 6. Earlier this month the committee announced that the church, as well as the nearby pilgrimage route, is among 36 sites which it plans to debate during that meeting. The debate marks the first time that the committee has considered registering a World Heritage site under Palestine. » Read more

Bipartisan House letter seeks Pollard’s release ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) June 12, 2012 - 12:00am Congressional Democrats and Republicans are joining forces for the first time in more than a decade in an effort to secure Jonathan Pollard's release. A bipartisan letter is circulating in the U.S. House of Representatives soliciting signatures on a letter to President Obama asking him to commute Pollard's sentence to time served. The "Dear Colleague" letter is signed by veteran House members Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.). » Read more

Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood on aid visit to Gaza Strip ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Hugh Naylor - June 13, 2012 - 12:00am A humanitarian-aid delegation led by Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood is on a weeklong visit to the Gaza Strip, as Palestinians prepared to mark tomorrow's fifth anniversary of Hamas's conquest of the territory. Some 10 tonnes of medical aid arrived in Gaza on Sunday with the delegation of 100 activists from 17 Arab countries, the unofficial Palestinian news agency Maan reported on Monday. » Read more

Palestinians enjoy land victory in Israeli courts ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Noah Browning - June 12, 2012 - 12:00am More used to enduring eviction orders than enforcing them, Palestinians are relishing the Israeli government's discomfort as it struggles to evacuate five settler buildings in the occupied West Bank. Israel's supreme court upheld a petition by a group of Palestinian landowners last month, mandating a demolition order by July 1 against the apartment blocs that sit on Ulpana Hill above the Palestinian village of Dura al-Qara. » Read more

Jordan presses US to refocus on Israeli-Palestinian conflict before November election ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Hill by Julian Pecquet - June 12, 2012 - 12:00am The Obama administration needs to recommit to helping solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or risk the ire of a whole generation of Arab youth demanding democratic change in the region, Jordan's foreign minister cautioned during a visit to Washington Tuesday. “You don't want to get to the U.S. election without something substantial in motion,” Nasser Judeh said in remarks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Judeh addressed the think tank after meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday. » Read more

To honor a tragic history, we must work for peace ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star by Ziad Asali - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am I do not need anyone to teach me about the Palestinian Nakba. It is the defining moment of my existence. During the 1948 war, my family had fled our home in Talpiot in southeast Jerusalem and taken shelter in a monastery. We quickly gathered some possessions and climbed down and up the mountain to Bethany, and then to Jericho. We eventually resettled as refugees in East Jerusalem.Because I was a graduating medical student at the American University of Beirut during the war of 1967, I became a double-refugee. » Read more

Palestinians' bid for full UN recognition "decisive" despite U.S. threats ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua (Interview) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Tuesday in an interview with Xinhua that the Palestinian bid for the United Nations' full recognition of an independent Palestinian state is "decisive" despite threats and warnings from the United States. » Read more

The warnings we should be hearing ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Amira Hass - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a world-renowned expert on terror, needs experts to understand that the burning of a major mosque by Jews will spark a larger conflagration? As Haaretz reported on Sunday, prominent Mideast experts met with the prime minister to administer this warning, along with a warning that building 850 new housing units in the West Bank, as a "patriotic" response to the evacuation of Beit El's Ulpana neighborhood, will indirectly lead to the outbreak of a third intifada. » Read more

Despite it all, still committed to peace ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Gershon Baskin - (Opinion) June 12, 2012 - 12:00am Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas told the French President Francois Hollande that if Israel releases weapons for his security forces and releases Palestinian prisoners he would be willing to meet in public with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. This statement is very peculiar. Both the demands and the promised outcome require a bit of analysis and inquiry. » Read more

Stand up for West Bank's Freedom theatre ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian by Howard Brenton - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am What price the freedom to put on plays? The odd bad review in the Daily Telegraph (if you're me)? Or protesters at Shakespeare's Globe (if you're performing in Habima theatre's Israeli version of The Merchant of Venice)? » Read more

My Way or the Highway ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Kathleen Peratis - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am If you say that the peace process, like the Wicked Witch, is not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead, no one will argue with you. Israel and the Palestinian Authority have not had a real negotiating session since September 2010, when so-called “talks” collapsed following a so-called settlement “freeze.” The last sign of life in the peace process was even earlier, in September 2008, when Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas came this close to a deal. » Read more

The Case for Deportation ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Micah Stein - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am On Monday, Israeli police began rounding up illegal African immigrants as the first step in a campaign of mass arrests and deportations around the country. Earlier this year, the Knesset passed an “anti-infiltration” bill, which allows police to detain illegal immigrants for years without a trial and punishes Israelis who employ, house, or transport illegal immigrants. » Read more

Question and Answer: Norman Finkelstein ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Tablet Magazine by David Samuels - (Interview) June 11, 2012 - 12:00am For three decades, Norman Finkelstein has been the American Jewish community’s problem-child—denounced as a hysteric, a marginal ideologue, and a self-hating Jew. Selfless and vain, highly emotional—sometimes hysterical—in tone yet relentlessly logical in his arguments, he is now an academic with a doctorate from Princeton whose attacks on “the Holocaust Industry” and public cheerleading for Hezbollah have rendered him so toxic that he can’t obtain even the lowliest adjunct teaching position at any community college in America. » Read more

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