March 13th

Please Shut Up ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Gershom Gorenberg - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am Rhetorically filling the fuel tanks of warplanes is all the rage. Benjamin Netanyahu did it at the AIPAC parley last week, dismissing diplomacy, sanctions and deterrence for dealing with Iran, and equating sorties over Qom with bombing Auschwitz. Rick Santorum used that venue to promise to "tear down" Iranian nuclear facilities. Mitt Romney was slightly more restrained, but his intent was the same: Bomb, baby, bomb. When Barack Obama tried to shush "loose talk of war," he got as much traction as a vicar giving a sermon during a soccer riot. » Read more

The "Existential Threat" to Israel Is Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post by John Tirman - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am The nearly complete mastery of U.S. politics that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again displayed in Washington last week belies a dark reality for the Jewish State. That is the startling prospect that it has sown the seeds of its own destruction, one which will come to its ghastly fruition in a matter of a few years. » Read more

Obama Betrayed Ideals on Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Peter Beinart - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am Bibi was coming again, and the White House was determined: this visit would not play out like the last one. On Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's previous trip to Washington, Obama had proposed that Israel and the Palestinians negotiate a peace deal based on the armistice lines drawn after Israel’s birth. Netanyahu reacted badly, lecturing the president publicly that “we can’t go back to those indefensible lines.” » Read more

GPS Panel: Iran, Israel and a Palestinian state ATFP World Press Roundup Article from CNN by Fareed Zakaria - (Interview) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave President Obama a gift in Washington this week. It was a copy of the book of Esther, which tells the tale of a benevolent king who saved the Jewish people from an enemy who wished to destroy them - a Persian enemy (not very subtle). So where does the Israel-Iran conflict end? On Sunday, I had an excellent panel to talk about that and much more. Daniel Levy is co-director of the Middle East Task Force of the New America Foundation. Bret Stephens is the foreign affairs columnist for the Wall Street Journal. » Read more

Judge's Silent Protest of Israeli Racism ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Leonard Fein - (Opinion) March 11, 2012 - 1:00am The scandal took place at the home of Israel’s president, where members of the nation’s leading legal and political echelon had gathered to pay tribute to the retiring president of the Supreme Court and to welcome her successor to that august office. Among those present were the other justices of the Court, including Justice Salim Joubran, the first Israeli Arab to be counted among its 15 members. » Read more

Planning beyond the possible ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Gershon Baskin - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am In October 1992, a year before the Oslo agreement was signed, I initiated a series of “Track II” talks in London between a group of Israeli security experts and their Palestinian counterparts. The Palestinian delegation was composed mostly of PLO representatives, with whom it was illegal for Israelis to meet face-to-face at the time. » Read more

Behind the scenes, both Israel and Hamas want violence to end ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Amos Harel - (Opinion) March 13, 2012 - 12:00am Israel and Hamas are delivering quite similar messages behind the scenes, in contrast to their public statements. Both powers in the Gaza conflict want to see the end of the current round of violence, which started Friday. A cease-fire is being stymied right now by two factors: heavy rocket fire by Islamic Jihad, taking full advantage of the weapons it received from Iran; and the lack of an effective way to end the face-off. » Read more

The reasons behind Islamic Jihad’s incessant rocket fire at Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Avi Issacharoff - (Opinion) March 13, 2012 - 12:00am There's no doubt that one reason Islamic Jihad is continuing its rocket fire on southern Israel is its glaring lack of success. After firing more than 200 rockets at the Negev, they still haven't killed any Israelis. What's more, the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system, which has shot down many of the rockets, is proving to be a formidable obstacle, one the terror group has not been able to overcome, even by firing a barrage of rockets at the same time. » Read more

Pro-Israel Lawmakers Promote One State ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Josh Nathan-Kazis - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am A resolution calling for a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been adopted in two state legislatures and is headed for more. Usually, such a call would be interpreted as a pro-Palestinian move that many fear could obliterate Israel as a Jewish state. But not in these cases. Instead, these resolutions are protests against U.S. efforts to implement a two-state solution, the endorsed policy of both the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority. » Read more

Israeli lawmakers nix U.S. conference over visa rejection ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am JERUSALEM (JTA) -- A delegation of Israeli lawmakers will not attend a Washington conference because the United States has barred entry to one member because he belonged to a banned terrorist group. Knesset member Michael Ben Ari of the right-wing National Union party had been affiliated with Kach, the anti-Arab group founded in the 1970s by the late Meir Kahane. Kach is banned in the United States, the European Union and Canada, and outlawed in Israel. » Read more