Middle East News: World Press Roundup

NEWS: Israel's anxieties about Egypt are apparently growing. Israel protests new South African regulations requiring Israeli goods from the occupied territories to be clearly labeled. The PA thanks South Africa and urges the entire world to boycott Israeli settlement goods. Deputy FM Ayalon says South Africa is still an apartheid state. Hamas calls on Egypt to treat Gaza residents as it treats Israeli tourists in the Sinai Peninsula. Senior UN officials reiterate that the two-state solution is the “most realistic option” for Israel and the Palestinians. The PA says settler violence is undermining the peace process. The Israeli government says efforts to integrate the children of African migrants are harming Israeli students. Residents of one “unauthorized” settlement outpost criticize residents of another for agreeing with the Israeli government to relocate. DM Barak says FM Lieberman's recent comments calling for the ouster of Pres. Abbas harmed Israel's interests. The EU and the UN call on Israel to cease a particularly destabilizing settlement project, Har Homa. Experts call on the US government to formally designate Jewish Israeli extremists as “terrorists.” COMMENTARY: Bradley Burston says Israel is threatened by Islamophobia, not Islam. Ha'aretz says Lieberman is a political ticking bomb, but the Jerusalem Post says he has a point. The Daily Star blasts Lieberman's remarks, and condemns the Israeli government in general. Jonathan Schanzer says Hamas has the same problems with corruption the PA does. Elliott Abrams thinks Congress should authorize the use of force against Iran. George Hishmeh bemoans "the American silence on Israel.”

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Developments in Iran and Sinai Deepen Israel’s Worries About Egypt ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Jodi Rudoren - August 22, 2012 - 12:00am Egypt’s new Islamist president headed to Iran next week and its military deploying tanks in the Sinai Peninsula — possibly outside the parameters of his nation’s 33-year-old treaty with Israel — officials here are increasingly worried about what has long been their most critical regional relationship. » Read more

Israel protests South African labeling law ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press August 22, 2012 - 12:00am Israel is condemning a new South African regulation requiring that products made in West Bank settlements must be labeled as coming from "occupied Palestinian territory." Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor calls the requirement "totally unacceptable." In a statement late Wednesday, Palmor said such measures have not been imposed, "and rightly so, in any other case of national, territorial or ethnic conflict." » Read more

PA thanks South Africa ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency August 23, 2012 - 12:00am The Palestinian Authority applauded South Africa on Thursday after its cabinet voted to distinguish goods made in the occupied West Bank from normal Israeli products. Abdul Hafiz Nofal, the PA's deputy economy minister, said he thanked South Africa's ambassador for the decision to label settlement products as "Occupied Palestinian Territory" rather than "Israel." » Read more

PNA urges world to bar goods made in Jewish settlements ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua August 23, 2012 - 12:00am The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on Thursday urged the world to bar goods made in Jewish settlements from entering the markets. "Blocking the settlements' goods emphasizes the international resolution about the illegitimacy and illegality of the settlements that were built on occupied Palestinian land," said a statement by the PNA's ministry of economy. The statement, meanwhile, welcomed South Africa's decision to label the settlements' products as being from the occupied Palestinian territories. The South African move has angered Israel. » Read more

Ayalon: South Africa is still an Apartheid state ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Herb Keinon - August 23, 2012 - 12:00am Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon took a stab back at South African authorities Wednesday, following their decision to mandate special labels on products coming from settlements, for the killing of 34 striking platinum miners, the bloodiest operation since the end of white rule. "Unfortunately it turns out that the changes that took place in South Africa over the years have not brought about basic changes in the country, and it remains an Apartheid state," Ayalon charged. » Read more

Hamas urges Egypt to treat Gazans as Israelis in Sinai ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua August 23, 2012 - 12:00am A Hamas official on Thursday called on Egypt to treat people in the Gaza Strip in the same way as it treats Israeli tourists who the Sinai Peninsula. Mahmoud Zahar, a leader of the Islamic movement that governs Gaza, said Egypt kept its border with Israel at Taba open during the Muslim feast this week and more than 10,000 Israelis have entered Sinai to spend their holiday. Zahar, writing on his Facebook page, added that the new Egyptian decision to open Rafah crossing point with Gaza for humanitarian cases only was "painful." » Read more

Two-state solution "most realistic" for Israelis, Palestinians: UN official ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua August 23, 2012 - 12:00am A senior UN official on Wednesday described the two-state solution as "the best available and most realistic option for the Israelis and Palestinians, saying that the international community should make more efforts to bring the two parties closer to such a solution, which was widely backed in the world. » Read more

PA minister: Settler violence undermines peace process ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency August 23, 2012 - 12:00am Israeli violations against Palestinians are encouraging violence and harming the peace process, the Palestinian Authority minister of religious affairs said Wednesday. Mahmoud Habbash's remarks came as he visited the family of victims who were targeted by settlers in a Molotov attack a week earlier near Hebron in the southern West Bank. Representing the president, Habbash told the family of the victims that Mahmoud Abbas would follow up with their case and intended to pay for their pilgrimage to Mecca. » Read more

Integration of migrants' children into schools harms Israeli students, state says ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Talia Nesher - August 23, 2012 - 12:00am Immigrant children should be separated from others in the school system, the Education Ministry believes, according to the State Prosecution’s appeal to the Supreme Court submitted earlier this week. The state appealed against the Be’er Sheva District Court, which had ordered Eilat two weeks ago to admit the children of African asylum-seekers to city schools. » Read more

West Bank outpost residents: Migron deal endangers settlement enterprise ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Chaim Levinson - August 23, 2012 - 12:00am Residents of the West Bank outpost of Givat Assaf have sent a letter to neighboring residents of the outpost of Migron, blaming them of harming the settlement enterprise, saying that their actions will bring about the evacuation of additional West Bank outposts. » Read more

Barak says Lieberman’s letter calling for Abbas’ ouster harms Israeli interests ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Barak Ravid - August 23, 2012 - 12:00am In closed discussions Wednesday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak sharply criticized Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s letter to foreign ministers from the Middle East Quartet, calling for Palestinian Authority elections to replace PA President Mahmoud Abbas. “This letter harms Israeli national interests, and will aggravate circumstances with the Palestinians. This is deeply misguided policy,” Barak stated in the private discussion. » Read more

EU, UN call on Israel to stop Har Homa construction ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Tovah Lazaroff - August 23, 2012 - 12:00am The EU and the UN on Wednesday called on Israel to stop Jewish building in east Jerusalem in response to the publication last week of tenders for 130 new units in the Har Homa neighborhood. “The EU has repeatedly urged the government of Israel to immediately end all settlement activities in the West Bank, including in east Jerusalem,” the office of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement it released to the media. It noted that their office had already spoken out against plans for these units last summer. » Read more

US Scholars: Designate Israeli Extremists as Terrorists ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor by Laura Rozen - August 22, 2012 - 12:00am Amid a rising spate of Jewish extremist violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank, two prominent US Middle East scholars are urging the United States to officially designate as terrorists those Israeli extremists who perpetrate terrorist violence against Palestinian civilians, Israeli citizens and even moderate elements of the settler movement. » Read more

Islamophobia, not Islam, will be the end of Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Bradley Burston - (Opinion) August 21, 2012 - 12:00am Everyone knows how it works. Everyone knows what it sounds like. Everyone knows how easy it is to get away with it. Everyone knows, deep down, that hatred feeds on tolerance. That however well-intentioned, a society's forbearance for the toxic slur, for the poison of ethnic or religious or racial prejudice, does hatred invaluable service. » Read more

A minister who’s a ticking bomb ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz (Editorial) August 23, 2012 - 12:00am Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has apparently decided to break his long silence and no longer spare the Israeli public and the world from his opinions. In his letter to the Middle East Quartet, as reported in Wednesday’s Haaretz, Lieberman calls for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas − whom he says is “personally acting to undermine” the peace process − to be removed and replaced in new PA elections. » Read more

Liberman’s letter ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post (Editorial) August 23, 2012 - 12:00am In a letter to the Middle East Quartet – the US, UN, EU and Russia – Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman called for long overdue Palestinian elections that would oust Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Liberman went on to enumerate a list of positive Israeli gestures toward the PA, which have been answered by the Palestinian leadership with legal and diplomatic warfare, instead of constructive dialogue. » Read more

Two-faced occupier ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star (Opinion) August 23, 2012 - 12:00am Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was once a nightclub bouncer in Soviet Moldova, born and raised outside Israel. He is a settler par excellence and in the perfect position for somebody with the track record of premier Benjamin Netanyahu to appoint him as foreign minister, in order to use him as the front man for any dirty work. » Read more

Hamas’s corruption ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Jonathan Schachter - (Opinion) August 23, 2012 - 12:00am The regional standing of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist faction born in 1987 as a Muslim Brotherhood splinter group, has undoubtedly been buoyed by the meteoric rise of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. But a potentially bigger factor has been the precipitous decline of its rival, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority government, led by the secular Fatah faction. » Read more

Time to Authorize Use of Force Against Iran ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Weekly Standard by Elliott Abrams - (Opinion) August 21, 2012 - 12:00am How America can stop what theNew York Times calls “Israel’s March to War” is the hot topic this month. The issue—for the Times—is whether Israel is on the verge of bombing Iran’s nuclear sites, or can be persuaded to delay that decision and rely on the United States instead. This is what a parade of U.S. officials visiting Jerusalem this summer have counseled (and pressured) Israel to do. But the comments of Israel’s top officials suggest that its patience is wearing thin and that it may act soon, in weeks if not months. » Read more

Why the American silence on Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) August 23, 2012 - 12:00am It is a fact of life that in an American national elections, held once in four years, foreign policy is not a contentious issue. But this time around the policies of Israel, a revered ally of various US administrations, has time and again hit the front pages and, occasionally, the opinion pages of leading US newspapers but with hardly any serious criticism. » Read more

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