Parsing Netanyahu's Washington talking points ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ibishblog by Hussein Ibish - (Blog) May 25, 2011 - 12:00am The Israeli Embassy in Washington helpfully sent their allies in Washington a set of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's talking points in relation to his speech in Congress yesterday and to AIPAC at the weekend, which were published by Ben Smith of Politico. They are the following: Netanyahu's vision of peace: 1) Mutual Recognition of the Jewish state and the Palestinian State 2) A Palestinian state that is independent and viable 3) A Palestinian state that will be fully demilitarized, with an Israeli military presence along the Jordan River. » Read more

Bibi's love-fest ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News (Editorial) May 26, 2011 - 12:00am If you stand on your head, the world around you is bound to look upside down. This is what Israel's leaders have been doing all these years. And this is what Benjamin Netanyahu did in his speeches before a rapturous and almost acquiescent audience at AIPAC conference on Monday and a joint session of US Congress on Tuesday. The thunderous applause that greeted Netanyahu at AIPAC is understandable. But the love-fest in Congress must have come as a rude shock to the rest of the world. » Read more

Road to Palestine becoming clearer ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times by Daoud Kuttab - (Opinion) May 26, 2011 - 12:00am The marathon of speeches that the US capital Washington witnessed last week cleared the view as to what is needed for Palestinians to reach their coveted independent state. Clearing the view, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that getting a state will be easy or attainable in the near future. People wanting to reach statehood need to be united, set clear and realistic goals as to its borders and have a blueprint for how to reach statehood and not just declare it. » Read more

Israel's US supporters ignore truths of occupation in West Bank and Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Micah Zenko - (Analysis) May 26, 2011 - 12:00am To an outsider, the title of the panel discussion seemed to sum up all that is wrong and depressing about the views of Palestinians that many Israelis and their American supporters hold. "Israel Improving Palestinian Lives," the conference programme read. The occasion for imparting the self-serving message - occupation is good - was the annual policy conference this week of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States. » Read more

US is complicit in Netanyahu's fiction ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National (Editorial) May 26, 2011 - 12:00am Stand up. Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. The US Congress, apparently, will rise for an ovation every time the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves his fist at the podium. For what was billed as a new "vision" for the Middle East, Mr Netanyahu's speech on Tuesday night was depressingly, predictably pedantic. This Israeli administration has no plan for peace, only a series of refusals, and as the show in Congress demonstrated, US politicians are only too willing to follow him down the garden path. » Read more

Don’t Make Us Choose ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward (Editorial) May 25, 2011 - 12:00am When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint meeting of Congress May 24, his first audience was the assembly of federal lawmakers and other government dignitaries seated before him. His second audience was President Obama, who was off hobnobbing with the Queen of England, but who only days earlier had set out his vision for achieving a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And his third audience was the American Jewish community. » Read more

‘Land Swaps’: Is There Enough Land To Swap? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Nathan Jeffay - (Analysis) May 25, 2011 - 12:00am It is the magic formula that could end the occupation while letting the majority of settlers stay put. But how would an Israeli-Palestinian land swap, the basis of President Obama’s Middle East vision, outlined on May 19, actually work? The main practical problem of an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank is the fact that some 300,000 Israeli settlers live there. Not only would a full evacuation be hazardous for any Israeli government on the domestic political front, but it also would be logistically difficult and exceedingly costly. » Read more

Israel’s Emergency Regulations Get Lease on Life ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line by Arieh O'Sullivan - May 25, 2011 - 12:00am At a time when the Arab regimes are suspending state-of-emergency laws in the face of popular protests, Israeli lawmakers have quietly voted to extend them another year into their seventh decade. A joint meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense committee and the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee this week accepted a government request to extend the state of emergency for 12 months. This wasn’t because there was a looming threat on the Jewish state, but because after more than 60 years parliament hasn’t found the time to regularize the rule in ordinary legislation » Read more

Ratting the Cage: Obama's albatross ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Larry Derfner - (Opinion) May 25, 2011 - 12:00am With that Salute to Judea and Samaria he just staged in Washington, our wise and fearless leader just screwed American policy in the Middle East, turned Israel into an albatross around the neck of the president of the United States, made Western Europe ashamed to be associated with us, waved a red flag at the Palestinians and the entire Muslim world, and I don’t know what else. Way to go, Bibi. » Read more

Haim Saban: US-Israel relations are 'all good' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post May 26, 2011 - 12:00am Israeli-born billionaire Haim Saban expressed optimism about Israel-American relations in an interview following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech to the US Congress on Tuesday. "I believe we're all good," Saban, Chairman of Univision Spanish Television and one of the Democratic Party's biggest donors, said. However, he added, "the US and Israel need to address points of difference between them in private, not in the UN or in front of cameras. The prime minister of Israel should not be speaking as he has in the Oval Office." » Read more