Shin Bet chief reports spike in terror plots against Israeli, Jewish targets
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
May 31, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Militant groups have stepped up efforts to strike both Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide during the past year, says the director of Israel's Shin Bet security service. "We've seen a significant acceleration in attempts to act against Israeli and Jewish targets in the world," Yoram Cohen said in a briefing to parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday.

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Syria set to become failed state-Israeli commander
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Douglas Hamilton - May 31, 2012 - 12:00am

TEL AVIV, May 31 (Reuters) - Syria is heading for collapse and will become a "warehouse of weapons" for Islamist militants as it descends into chaos, a senior Israeli army commander said. "Syria is in civil war, which will lead to a failed state, and terrorism will blossom in it," said Major-General Yair Golan, making a rare public appearance at a conference at Bar Ilan University on Wednesday. "Syria has a big arsenal."

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Divergent Path on Israel Helps Lobby Group Grow
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Eric Lichtblau - May 30, 2012 - 12:00am

WASHINGTON — There was a time not so long ago when political contributions from Americans supportive of Israel inevitably veered toward those Congressional candidates who were the most hawkish and outspoken in defending Israel and its security.

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Defining a Palestinian refugee a US complication
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Donna Cassata - May 31, 2012 - 12:00am

WASHINGTON—A simple congressional request for the United States to distinguish between Palestinians displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict and millions of their descendants poses a high-stakes diplomatic and political challenge for President Barack Obama.

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Violence, poverty besets Palestinians in Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Jihan Abdalla - May 30, 2012 - 12:00am

LOD, Israel (Reuters) -- "My friend is on the floor, dying, 11 holes in his body, and I only have 10 fingers," raps Tamer Nafar. "Don't close your eyes, blink if you can hear me." Nafar isn't rapping about violence and crime in urban America, but murders, drugs, guns and gang warfare in his own slum inside Israel.

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Poll: Fatah would win national elections
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 31, 2012 - 12:00am

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Fatah would win an election if it were held today, according to the results of a poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center released Tuesday. Some 42 percent of Palestinians would vote for Fatah and 19.5 percent would elect Hamas, according to the poll which surveyed 1,188 people selected at random in the West Bank and Gaza.

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May 30th

NEWS: DM Barak says if negotiations with Palestinians fail, Israel will have to consider unilateral acts in the occupied West Bank and calls for more international action against Pres. Assad. An elaborate tunnel system and economy is the heart of life in Gaza. Israeli offshore natural gas discoveries offer potential windfalls but pose a challenge to its small navy. PM Netanyahu urges Palestinians to return to negotiations. Gaza journalist Asma al-Ghoul wins an international award for courage. Israel will return the bodies of 91 Palestinians buried in an Israeli cemetery. The PA is seeking UN recognition of a threatened West Bank village as a world heritage site. An Israeli MK says human rights activists should be put in prison camps. Israeli judges approve an extremely unusual plea bargain in the case of a Jewish terrorist found responsible for murdering Palestinians. Israeli prosecutors decide not to indict two rabbis who authored a book that provides religious justification for the killing of non-Jews. Palestinians say there has been a sharp increase in home demolitions by Israeli occupation authorities. COMMENTARY: Shlomo Ben-Ami, Thomas Schelling, Jerome Segal and Javier Solana call for the creation of a new UN Special Committee on Palestine. Zvi Bar'el says Iran is signaling a new willingness to engage in the West on its nuclear program. Aeyal Gross says security protection must apply to the Palestinians as well as Israelis. Controversy surrounds an Israeli production of the Merchant of Venice being staged at an international Shakespeare Festival in London. Nathan Guttman says Israeli politicians are increasingly looking for support from American donors. Ilan Baruch says nonviolent protests make sense for Palestinians, but they have to be careful about the counterproductive impact of sweeping boycotts. Rubik Rosenthal says Israel is still fundamentally a European country. Zvika Krieger says some right-wing Israelis think the “Arab Spring” is good for Israel.

The Right-Wing Israeli Case That the Arab Spring Is Good for Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Atlantic
by Zvika Krieger - (Opinion) May 30, 2012 - 12:00am

The conventional wisdom, both here in Israel and abroad, is that the popular movements sweeping across the Arab world are bad news for Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently described the Arab Spring as an "Islamic, anti-Western, anti-liberal, anti-Israeli, and anti-democratic wave," saying that "Israel is facing a period of instability and uncertainty in the region. This is certainly not the time to listen to those who say follow your heart."

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Israel’s Identity Still European
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'ariv
by Rubik Rosenthal - (Opinion) May 21, 2012 - 12:00am

Europe is in one of its most painful periods of turmoil since the end of the Cold War. The crisis is mostly economic and financial, but it also unearths complex questions about nationalism and identity, and about the intersection between Europe on one hand, and Asia and Africa on the other, under threat by the latter’s waves of migrants who will change its identity.

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How the Palestinian Boycotts Can Work
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor
by Ilan Baruch - (Opinion) May 24, 2012 - 12:00am

About a year ago I left the foreign ministry after 36 years of diplomatic work. I left for political reasons: I felt that I could no longer faithfully represent a government striving to achieve political ends that I viewed as unrealistic and immoral, a government intent on abandoning the goal of ending the occupation by coming to an arrangement based on “two states for two nations.”

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