Middle East News: World Press Roundup

NEWS: The emergent Palestinian IT sector in the occupied West Bank evades Israeli restrictions on physical movement. Sec. Panetta says he does not believe Israel has made a decision regarding what to do about Iran. Mitt Romney courts donors and raises cash in Israel, declares Jerusalem to be Israel's capital, and says differences with the United States embolden the enemies of both countries. PM Fayyad meets with Romney. A Palestinian man is killed at an Israeli checkpoint. Pres. Abbas says he's confident Palestinians can gain further recognition at the UN. Israel plans to deploy new rocket interceptors in 2013. A member of the committee looking into the question says trying to determine the cause of death of the late Pres. Arafat is “like looking for a needle in the ocean.” Palestinians say Israeli settlers are draining West Bank water supplies. The EU is pressuring Israel to change its policies towards “Area C,” and complains about wide-ranging human rights violations. The US has reportedly presented Israel with a contingency plan for a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Another mysterious incident raises the question of Israeli espionage in the United States. Former Obama aide Dennis Ross reportedly will not be campaigning for the president's reelection. COMMENTARY: Israel Hayom interviews Romney. Barak Ravid says PM Netanyahu has embraced Romney as no Israeli prime minister has ever embraced the US candidate before. Gershom Gorenberg says Romney didn't really have much to gain by visiting Israel. Herb Keinon says Israel has become a backdrop set for US presidential politics. Jan Schakowski asks what exactly Romney is proposing that would be so different from what Pres. Obama has done with regard to Israel, and Abraham Katzman suggests some examples. Uri Avnery says Israelis are avoiding looking at the contradictions of their own ideology and politics. The Independent publishes extracts from Raja Shehadeh's new book “Occupation Diaries.”

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West Bank’s Emerging Silicon Valley Evades Issues of Borders ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Isabel Kershner - July 29, 2012 - 12:00am The spotless cafeteria is fashionably furnished with fluorescent orange and lime green tables, and there are table tennis and foosball tables in the basement. What else could it be but a tech start-up, even here? » Read more

Panetta Sidesteps Issue of Israel’s Plans on Iran ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Elisabeth Bumiller - July 29, 2012 - 12:00am Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Sunday that he did not think Israel had yet made a decision to strike Iran, but that his goal in meeting with the Israeli leadership this week was to strengthen ties with the United States “so that we can be fully prepared to deal with any contingency that may happen.” » Read more

Romney comments at fundraiser outrage Palestinians ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press by Kasie Hunt - July 30, 2012 - 12:00am Mitt Romney told Jewish donors Monday that their culture is part of what has allowed them to be more economically successful than the Palestinians, outraging Palestinian leaders who called his comments racist and out of touch. » Read more

In Israel, Romney declares Jerusalem to be capital ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press by Kasie Hunt - July 30, 2012 - 12:00am Standing on Israeli soil, U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Sunday declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the Jewish state and said the United States has "a solemn duty and a moral imperative" to block Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. "Make no mistake, the ayatollahs in Iran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object and who will look the other way," he said. "We will not look away nor will our country ever look away from our passion and commitment to Israel." » Read more

Romney: US, Israel differences embolden enemies ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press July 30, 2012 - 12:00am Mitt Romney says any public differences between the United States and Israel only embolden adversaries. The U.S. presidential candidate says it is a "basic truth" that the United States and Israel will always stand together. Without mentioning the tensions between President Barack Obama and Israel's leaders, Romney suggested in a Jerusalem speech Sunday that the diplomatic differences only encourage Israel's enemies. » Read more

Fayyad meets US presidential candidate Romney ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency July 30, 2012 - 12:00am Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad met with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Sunday, PA spokesman Ghassan al-Khatib said. The former Massachusetts governor was in Jerusalem on the second leg of a trip to strengthen his foreign policy credentials in his race to unseat Obama. After talks with Israeli leaders, Romney met with Fayyad. He then visited the Western Wall, Judaism's most revered site. » Read more

Israel troops shoot dead Palestinian at checkpoint ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press July 30, 2012 - 12:00am Israeli border police have shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded two others at the entrance to Jerusalem. Border police spokesman Shai Hakimi says 40-year-old Akram Badr was traveling in a car that burst through a checkpoint at high speed early Monday and tried to run over officers who ordered him to stop. Palestinian police said the car had entered a wrong lane and was backing up to enter the right one when Israeli border police mistakenly thought it was trying to hit them and opened fire. » Read more

Abbas confident in Palestinian bid for UN recognition ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua July 29, 2012 - 12:00am Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday expressed confidence that the Palestinian bid for the United Nations' recognition of a Palestinian state will succeed this time once the bid is applied. Abbas, who paid a visit to the West Bank's northern city of Jenin to have Iftar meal with city notables during the holy month of Ramadan, said that "we went to the UN and we didn't succeed in the first time, but next time we will." » Read more

Israel to deploy two new rocket interceptors in 2013 ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua July 30, 2012 - 12:00am The Israel Air Force (IAF) is expected to deploy two additional Iron Dome missile-defense batteries early next year, The Jerusalem Post reported Sunday. The new batteries have reportedly been outfitted with upgraded software and radars that will enable interception at extended ranges, and will be operated by reservists, according to the report. The batteries will join the four currently at the disposal of the IAF, with additional systems scheduled for supply in the coming years. » Read more

Arafat inquiry like looking for 'needle in the ocean' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency July 30, 2012 - 12:00am The investigation into late President Yasser Arafat's death is ongoing, director of the committee responsible for the inquiry said Sunday. Tawfiq al-Tirawi told Ma'an that a medical committee headed by Abdullah al-Basheer is undertaking research in coordination with international specialists and will brief officials on the results once investigations reach their final stages. » Read more

Attili: Israeli settlers draining Palestinian water supply ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency July 30, 2012 - 12:00am Israel allocates 70 times more water to each settler than to the average Palestinian in the West Bank, the head of the Palestinian Water Authority said Sunday. At a press conference in Ramallah, Shaddad Attili said Palestinians received 105 million cubic meters of water, less than the amount allocated in the 1995 Oslo Accords and around a quarter of the 400 million cubic meters needed according to international standards. » Read more

EU pressure for aid change in Area C ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency July 28, 2012 - 12:00am As demolition orders continue to threaten the work of humanitarian organizations in Israeli-controlled Area C in the West Bank, the European Union and humanitarian agencies are pressing to change the rules of the aid game. » Read more

EU slams Israel’s 'human rights violations' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews July 29, 2012 - 12:00am In a recent statement issued by the EU-Israel Association Council, the European Union (EU) sharply criticized Israel for what it referred to as a wide range of human rights violations in the Jewish state and the "occupied Palestinian territory (OPT)." » Read more

U.S. presented Netanyahu with contingency plan for Iran strike ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Barak Ravid - July 29, 2012 - 12:00am The U.S. national security adviser has shared with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the United States' contingency plans for a possible attack on Iran. According to a senior American official, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon briefed Netanyahu on the plans during Donilon's visit to Israel two weeks ago. According to the official, who requested anonymity, Netanyahu hosted Donilon at a three-hour dinner. For part of the time, Israel's national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, was on hand. » Read more

US sees Israel as spy threat ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press July 30, 2012 - 12:00am The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in. The incident, described by three former senior US intelligence officials, might have been dismissed as just another cloak-and-dagger incident in the world of international espionage, except that the same thing had happened to the previous station chief in Israel. » Read more

Key Pro-Israel Obama Ally Splits ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Eli Lake - July 28, 2012 - 12:00am As Republican donors are financing multimillion-dollar campaigns to bring Jewish voters over to Mitt Romney, one of President Obama’s most important liaisons to the pro-Israel community has opted to sit out the 2012 election cycle. » Read more

Romney to Israel Hayom: Israel deserves better treatment than it's getting from Obama ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Israel Hayom by Boaz Bismuth, Amos Regev - (Interview) July 27, 2012 - 12:00am Israel deserves better treatment than it received during the term of U.S. President Barack Obama, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney told Israel Hayom in a special interview this week. "I would treat Israel like the friend and ally it is. We share not only common interests, but also common values." "I cannot imagine going to the United Nations, as Obama did, and criticizing Israel in front of the world," he said. "You don't criticize your allies in public to achieve the applause of your foes." » Read more

In Jerusalem speech, it was Romney's voice but Netanyahu's words ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Barak Ravid - (Opinion) July 30, 2012 - 12:00am Romney's staff picked the 150 guests carefully. Religious American immigrants dominated the crowd; secular Jews and native-born Israelis were few and far between. Those present included Jewish-American millionaires, settler leaders like the former chairman of the Yesha Council of settlements Israel Harel, and former Netanyahu aides such as Dore Gold, Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked and Yoaz Hendel. » Read more

Mitt, Are You Sure This Trip Was a Good Idea? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Gershom Gorenberg - (Opinion) July 27, 2012 - 12:00am Even before he gets to Israel this weekend, Mitt Romney has discovered the perils of trying to look like a statesman overseas while running for office at home. » Read more

Back lot Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Herb Keinon - (Analysis) July 29, 2012 - 12:00am With a setting Jerusalem sun casting shadows on the Tower of David and the walls of the Old City as his background, US Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney got what he wanted Sunday before he even delivered a word of his speech – valuable Holy City campaign footage. » Read more

Romney on Israel: What is doing the 'opposite' of Obama? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Jan Schakowsky - (Opinion) July 29, 2012 - 12:00am Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney boldly declares that, if elected to the most powerful office in the world, he will do the opposite of US President Barack Obama on Israel. Speaking by satellite last month to the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference of Christian conservatives, meeting in Washington DC, Gov. Romney said he would represent “the opposite” of what President Obama is doing on US relations with Israel and Iran. » Read more

The 'opposite' of Obama: A primer for Democrats ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Abraham Katsman - (Opinion) July 29, 2012 - 12:00am In June, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told an audience of Christian conservatives that he would do the “opposite” of what US President Barack Obama has done in terms of Israel. “I think, by and large, you can just look at the things the president has done and do the opposite.” Romney explained that his “overarching” message was that “I would not want to show a dime’s worth of distance between ourselves and our allies like Israel. If we have disagreements, we can talk about them behind closed doors. » Read more

‘Talk Zionism’ — a string of empty phrases ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News by Uri Avnery - (Opinion) July 30, 2012 - 12:00am HE talks Zionism,” used to be a very derogatory comment when I was young. It meant that some elderly functionary had come to waste our time with a boring speech consisting largely of empty phrases. That was before the foundation of the State of Israel. Since then, the term Zionism has been elevated to the status of a state ideology, if not state religion. Everything the state does is justified by the use of this word. Some would say that Zionism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. » Read more

Tales from the West Bank: Palestinian Raja Shehadeh chronicles life during occupation ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent by Raja Shehadeh - (Book Review) July 28, 2012 - 12:00am 13 December 2009: I'm just back from a lovely day spent in Wadi Kelt, the ravine on the way between Jerusalem and Jericho. This is one of the few places in the West Bank where one can be sure of finding water even after the drought of the past eight months. Turned out we were not the only ones who had the idea of an outing there. Just after we put down our rucksacks and stretched out on the rock in the sun, a Palestinian family of nine arrived. They were disappointed to find us there but settled for the second best slab of rock on the opposite side of the pool. » Read more

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