NEWS: DM Barak says Israel and the US disagree on the timetable for dealing with Iran's nuclear program. The PA says it has spent $7 billion on Gaza since the split with Hamas in 2007. PM Fayyad urges donors to fund a desalinization plant to alleviate the water crisis in Gaza. Pres. Abbas and Sec. Clinton discuss the upcoming Quartet meeting. The power crisis in Gaza is exacerbated by tensions with Egypt. Israel finalizes a deal with Germany for a 6th Dolphin submarine. The UK Advertising Standards Authority insists Israeli representations of its borders adhere to the 1967 lines. The Egyptian military is resisting Muslim Brotherhood calls to open the border with Gaza, as Egypt's relations with Hamas remain tense. A new EU report says Israel is “turning a blind eye” to settler violence against Palestinians, particularly farmers. COMMENTARY: Ha'aretz says the settlement project is leading to Israel's self-destruction. Gideon Levy says Israel is not succeeding in playing the eternal victim. Ari Shavit says Israel isn't bluffing about a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Douglas Bloomfield says PM Netanyahu fears that a 2nd-term Pres. Obama might not be “so easily bullied.” Edward Stourton asks if an Israeli attack on Iran is inevitable or preventable. J.J. Goldberg says recent remarks by EU foreign policy chief Ashton have been completely misunderstood and misrepresented. George Hishmeh says Americans are becoming more aware of religious extremism and racism in Israel. The Daily Star says the Toulouse killer is only the latest terrorist to cynically misappropriate the Palestinian cause. Aaron David Miller says it's ridiculous to claim that Israel controls Washington. Hussein Ibish says Jewish Americans and all those interested in peace should boycott settlement goods.

Three Cheers for a Settlement Boycott
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) March 21, 2012 - 12:00am

The backlash against Peter Beinart's principled call for Jewish Americans to boycott Israeli settlement goods mirrors a debate that has been raging within the pro-Palestinian community. While many Jewish Americans, including those who are highly critical of the settlements, have reacted angrily to Beinart's idea and reject the notion of any boycott of any Israelis whatsoever, in pro-Palestinian circles the debate has been whether or not to boycott all of Israel or to focus on the occupation and the settlements.

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Six Big Lies about How Jerusalem Runs Washington
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy
by Aaron David Miller - (Opinion) March 21, 2012 - 12:00am

Several years after leaving government, I wrote a piece in the Washington Post titled "Israel's Lawyer." The article was an honest effort to explain how several senior officials in U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration (myself included) had a strong inclination to see the Arab-Israeli negotiations through a pro-Israel lens. That filter played a role -- though hardly the primary one -- in the failure of endgame diplomacy, particularly at the ill-fated Camp David summit in July 2000.

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Hijacked cause
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
(Editorial) March 22, 2012 - 12:00am

The Toulouse killer’s claim that the Palestinian struggle was the motive behind his recent murdering spree is just the latest example of terrorists’ misappropriation of the cause for their own selfish reasons. After shooting dead three soldiers, three Jewish children and one teacher over the last 10 days, Mohamed Merah was Wednesday cornered in his apartment by police. The Frenchman, of Algerian descent, has allegedly declared allegiance to Al-Qaeda, and said that the killings were designed to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children.

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Calling Israel's bluff
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) March 22, 2012 - 12:00am

Benjamin Netanyahu, the arrogant Israeli prime minister, is always tempted to repeat — erroneously — to foreign audiences that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. All he has to do is look around his country and see how some Israeli citizens, Jews and non-Jews, including women face discrimination in their communities.

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Ashton's False Equivalency That Wasn't
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by J.J. Goldberg - (Opinion) March 22, 2012 - 12:00am

What could possibly explain the logic of the European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, who stunned the Jewish world on March 19 by lumping together the murdered Jewish children of Toulouse in the same sentence with Arab civilian war victims in Gaza? What conceivable morality could combine them in one thought? As near as I can figure, there are three ways of understanding her comment. Let’s take them one at a time.

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Does America and Iran's mutual mistrust mean war is inevitable?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Edward Stourton - (Opinion) March 19, 2012 - 12:00am

n late 2004, in an atmosphere of frenzied speculation about war with Iran, Jack Straw - then Britain's Foreign Secretary - told the BBC that military action was "inconceivable." "If I'd not done so, in my view we would have been involved in a firestorm inside the Labour government." For the United States and Britain had recently invaded Iraq. "It was impossible for any British government, but particularly a Labour government given what had happened in Iraq, to contemplate or have any dalliance with the idea of military action in Iran," he now recalls.

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Setting back the war clock
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Douglas Bloomfield - (Opinion) March 21, 2012 - 12:00am

The question of whether US or Israeli forces will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in this volatile election year became murkier in the wake of this month’s AIPAC policy conference and some serious saber rattling coming from the Washington Convention Center, as well as from Jerusalem. Some factors on the international game board suggest the likelihood of a US attack has diminished, but political factors may be driving the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to ratchet up Israeli plans for possible military action.

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Washington and Jerusalem differ on Iran
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Ari Shavit - (Opinion) March 22, 2012 - 12:00am

A week ago, a senior Israeli official had an American guest over for a late-night chat. Because the guest is intelligent and influential, the official, after offering whiskey and serving coffee, cut straight to the chase.

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Guilt-tripping the world is dangerous for Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) March 22, 2012 - 12:00am

As if the horror in Toulouse wasn't enough, as if the suspicion that Al-Qaida was involved in the attack wasn't enough, and as if the constant criticism of Israel wasn't enough, we've invented another imaginary enemy: Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign policy chief.

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