April 6th

The fallacy of the 'pinkwashing' argument
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by James Kirchick - (Opinion) April 6, 2012 - 12:00am

On March 16, a group of gay Israeli teenagers was set to meet with the Seattle LGBT Commission, a body representing the interests of the gay community before the city government. The students were touring the United States under the auspices of the Alliance of Israeli LGBT Educational Organizations, a network of groups that support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. The purpose of the visit was to exchange ideas about best practices for combating homophobia, share personal experiences and, like any cultural exchange, generally learn from one other.

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Egypt: No Evidence of Sinai Rocket Launch
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
April 5, 2012 - 12:00am

EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma'an) -- Egyptian officials disputed on Thursday Israeli assessments showing that rockets which struck the city of Eilat were fired from Egypt's Sinai desert. An Egyptian security official in the southern Sinai, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Egyptian-Israeli border was "intensively secured", and no one had detected a flash of light or sound on Wednesday. No casualties or damage were reported after the rocket struck the Israeli resort town, police said, but the incident fueled Israeli worries over militant activity in the border area.

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Hebron Settlers Threaten Retaliation After Israeli Police Evict Them
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Alon Bernstein - April 5, 2012 - 12:00am

Israeli security forces swiftly evicted dozens of Jewish settlers from an illegally occupied building in this volatile West Bank city on Wednesday, ending a week-long standoff that had threatened to spill over into broader violence. The raid caught the settlers off guard. Only a day earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had moved to block the eviction order. Settler supporters in Netanyahu's hard-line government condemned the surprise raid, a key political ally threatened to quit the coalition and settler leaders vowed retaliation.

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Where’s the outcry over Palestinian censorship?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by David Keyes - (Opinion) April 5, 2012 - 12:00am

A university lecturer and single mother of two, Ismat Abdul-Khaleq, was arrested in the West Bank last week for criticizing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Facebook. Perhaps this is what Abbas meant when he said during a recent interview with al-Jazeera that his party, Fatah, was a political and ideological copy of the terrorist group Hamas. His words: “In all honesty, there are no disagreements between us.”

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Gaza Militants Say They Will Adhere to Cease-Fire, As Wary Israel Seals Borders or Holiday
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
April 5, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — A Palestinian militant leader said Friday that his group is adhering to a cease-fire that stopped a barrage of rockets and air strikes between Israel and the Gaza Strip last month. Sheik Nafez Azzam of Islamic Jihad said Israeli reports that he had called for an ongoing struggle against Israel, despite a cease-fire, were mistaken. “We in the Islamic Jihad are committed to the cease-fire,” Azzam told The Associated Press. He said a firebrand speech calling for ongoing resistance was a general political statement.

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April 5th

NEWS: A rocket fired from Sinai lands in southern Israel. Despite some settler evictions, Israel is pushing forward strongly with settlement expansion. Israel's mayor in Jerusalem sees vast potential for tourism. Palestinian officials condemn new Israeli settlement plans. Palestinian journalists say conditions are deteriorating for a woman being detained for insulting Pres. Abbas. German author Grass says Israel endangers world peace. Israel asks for another $700 million in US military aid. PM Netanyahu is seeking to recognize three additional “unauthorized” settlement outposts. Reports suggest that Khalid Mishal may be the sole candidate for the president of the Hamas political bureau in upcoming closed-door elections. The ICC chief prosecutor says a Palestinian non-member UN observer state could become a member of the Assembly of Parties. Palestinians say settlers are taking over more water sources in the occupied West Bank. COMMENTARY: Ha'aretz says Netanyahu did the right thing in evicting Hebron settlers who seized a Palestinian home. Natasha Mozgovaya interviews Norman Finkelstein. Jonathan Rosen says Israel must decide what kind of country it wants to be irrespective of Palestinians or anybody else. Douglas Bloomfield says Netanyahu may be undercutting his own arguments on Iran by invoking the Holocaust. Noam Marans says churches should not divest from Israel. Yehudah Mirsky says Netanyahu governs by constant ambiguity. Omri Meniv says Kadima is in its death throes. Robert Wright says a two-state solution is quickly becoming impossible. Tom Segev says Grass' poem is more pathetic than anti-Semitic.

Gunter Grass' poem is more pathetic than anti-Semitic
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Tom Segev - (Opinion) April 5, 2012 - 12:00am

"What Must Be Said" was the title Gunter Grass gave his controversial poem in which he labeled Israel a threat to world peace because of its nuclear arsenal. This was his first mistake: It did not have to be said because it has already been said by many others, in Israel as well.

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The Two-State Solution on Its Deathbed
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Atlantic
by Robert Wright - (Opinion) April 5, 2012 - 12:00am

Peter Beinart's book The Crisis of Zionism has started debates about various things, including whether it's too late for a two-state solution. Beinart's view is that it's not quite too late but is so close to that as to warrant drastic measures--like a boycott of products made in West Bank settlements (or "Zionist BDS," as distinguished from full-on BDS). My view is if anything more pessimistic. But apparently I should cheer up: After I last expressed that pessimism, fellow Atlantic contributor Zvika Krieger explained that it rests on confusion.

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Kadima Is in Death Throes And On Way to Irrelevance
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'ariv
by Omri Meniv - (Opinion) March 28, 2012 - 12:00am

Good morning to the elected leader of Kadima, and congratulations on the impressive victory — notwithstanding your party bieng in its death-throes and irrelevant, a party that should never have risen at all, a party that must die as soon as possible and maybe will do so after the coming national elections.

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The "Sort of" Leader
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Yehudah Mirsky - (Opinion) April 4, 2012 - 12:00am

Last week Tzipi Livni proved of one of my pet theories of Middle Eastern politics— the more attractive and familiar a public figure is to foreign elites, the thinner their support back home. One of Newsweek's 150 most powerful women in the world was just trounced in Kadima's primaries by Shaul Mofaz, a gray, inarticulate, lifelong soldier (whose media advisors are now working to reshape him into a smiling crusader for social justice). Now it's his turn to try and snag the crucial centrist bloc, one quarter of the Israeli electorate, that wanders from one party to another, looking for a home.

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