March 20th

Not only violence has failed ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) March 19, 2012 - 12:00am In reviewing more than six decades of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a cost/benefit analysis of the two sides' reliance on violence produces a very mixed record. Whereas Israel has generally triumphed in its conventional wars against neighboring Arab states, success in fighting non-state actors--primarily the Palestinians but also Hizballah--has been much more difficult to achieve. The Palestinian record against Israel is no better. » Read more

Physicians of female Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike say her life is in danger ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press March 20, 2012 - 12:00am JERUSALEM — A Palestinian woman who has refused food for the past month to protest her imprisonment by Israel without formal charges is in grave danger of dying, a medical rights group said Tuesday. Hana Shalabi lost 14 kilograms (31 pounds), her muscles are wasting and she is in excruciating pain, said Ran Cohen of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, which has provided her a doctor. She has taken only water since her arrest on Feb. 16. » Read more

Learning the lessons ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) March 19, 2012 - 12:00am Violence has been always a prominent characteristic of how Israel handles its relationships in the neighborhood. The state was created through violence wielded against the indigenous Palestinian population, resulting in the exile of 800,000 Palestinian refugees to surrounding countries. Afterwards, the use of force became a doctrine in Israel, used to intimidate its neighbors and impress its friends. » Read more

This conflict has no military solution ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons by Ephraim Sneh - (Opinion) March 19, 2012 - 12:00am We are in a period of loss of confidence in the peace process, when the chances of reaching a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appear distant. Now, again, we hear Palestinian voices calling for a return to violent struggle. This seems like an appropriate time to review the history of violent clashes between the two sides--and their outcome. » Read more

U.S. War Game Sees Perils of Israeli Strike Against Iran ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Mark Mazzetti, Tom Shanker - March 19, 2012 - 12:00am WASHINGTON — A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials. The officials said the so-called war game was not designed as a rehearsal for American military action — and they emphasized that the exercise’s results were not the only possible outcome of a real-world conflict. » Read more

The West Bank Through Chinese Eyes ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Bernard Avishai - (Opinion) March 19, 2012 - 12:00am Three weeks ago—just while Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing for his Palestineless AIPAC speech—I accompanied a team of about thirty Chinese businesspeople on a visit to the West Bank, led by a former Duke colleague, Liu Kang, now also the dean of the Institute of Arts and Humanities Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University. It was kind of tour d’horizon for uninitiated but intrigued foreign investors—“some billionaires,” Kang assured me—shoe and leather manufacturers, toy exporters, equity-fund managers, people by now accustomed to seeing the world as their market, if not their oyster. » Read more

March 19th

In 2011, US primacy in the Middle East died ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Barry Rubin - (Opinion) March 18, 2012 - 12:00am This is the end... Of our elaborate plans, the end, Of everything that stands.... No safety or surprise.... There’s danger on the edge of town.... And all the children are insane.... The West is the best.... But you will never follow me.” – “This is the End,” The Doors » Read more

Defining Jews, Defining a Nation: Can Genetics Save Israel? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Atlantic by Jeff Wheelwright - (Analysis) March 14, 2012 - 12:00am Herzliya, a broad-beached ocean-side resort 10 miles north of Tel Aviv, is booming with construction -- big hotels going up on the bluffs and expensive new bungalows on the bougainvillea-laden streets. Herzliya was named for Theodor Herzl, the 19th-century Zionist visionary whose dream to see the Jewish people resettled in their homeland triumphantly came to pass. » Read more

Palestinian Transformations ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat by Elias Harfoush - (Opinion) March 18, 2012 - 12:00am The times are different for Gaza, and they are different for Hamas. And just as the recent confrontation in the Gaza Strip represented a new test of the ability of Israel’s offensives to inflict human casualties and material damage among the ranks of the Palestinians, as if we needed further Palestinian bloodshed to discover this, it also represented a test for the Islamist movement and for its courageous hesitation to move forward in taking the risk of such a costly confrontation. » Read more

The dangers of the situation in Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat by Emad El Din Adeeb - (Opinion) March 18, 2012 - 12:00am Amidst our preoccupation with the situations in Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Tunisia, the danger of the situation in Gaza seems to have slipped from our memory, even though the current scenario forewarns that a military explosion is likely to start in Gaza and end in southern Lebanon. » Read more