April 13th

With West Focused on Iran, Netanyahu Moves to Expand Israeli Settlements ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Ben Lynfield - April 12, 2012 - 12:00am Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is moving to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank at a time when international attention is focused elsewhere, with President Obama gearing up for reelection and the West targeting Iran's nuclear program. Last week, the Netanyahu government took a variety of steps that, taken together, amount to a significant strengthening of Israel's hold in the West Bank, the biblically resonant territory occupied in 1967, which Palestinians claim as the heartland for their future state. » Read more

Once Taboo, Germans’ Anti-Israel Whispers Grow Louder ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Nicholas Kulish - April 13, 2012 - 12:00am BERLIN — To judge by the outpouring of comments from politicians and writers and from the newspaper and magazine articles in response to the Nobel laureate Günter Grass’s poem criticizing Israel’s aggressive posture toward Iran, it would appear that the public had resoundingly rejected his work. But even a quick dip into the comments left by readers on various Web sites reveals quite another reality. » Read more

April 12th

No, Of Course I'm Not ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) April 11, 2012 - 12:00am Since the emergence of the one-state movement, I've been routinely described by the pro-Palestinian far right and ultra-left as a “Zionist,” and even a “traitor” and “collaborator,” because I remain committed to ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Of course, most of these people were, in the past, themselves supporters of a two state solution, so by their logic they were also once “traitors” and “collaborators.” » Read more

Palestinians need freedom in Jerusalem, not Israeli permits ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Hanan Ashrawi - (Opinion) April 11, 2012 - 12:00am It is Easter in Jerusalem. Newspaper pictures show scenes of Christians from all over the world celebrating and commemorating this holy occasion, with processions, special services and prayers. While most come freely with passports and tourist visas, the indigenous Christian population, many of them coming from towns and villages within few kilometers of the Old City, require special permits to visit their holy sites. The majority of these Christians do not receive the necessary permits and so are prevented from participating in the Easter celebrations of Jerusalem. » Read more

The Second-Term Illusion ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy by Aaron David Miller - (Opinion) April 11, 2012 - 12:00am It's 2013. Barack Obama has just been re-elected, the Democrats have retained their majority in the Senate. And the American president, freed from political constraints in a second term, decides to take on an issue that stymied him so badly in his first. "Israeli-Palestinian peace is critically important to our national interests," Obama tells his new secretary of state (Kerry, Rice, Donilon -- take your pick). "If we don't move now, the two-state solution is dead." "It means taking on Benjamin Netanyahu," the secretary responds. » Read more

The real Ben Gurion ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) April 12, 2012 - 12:00am There is no doubt that David Ben Gurion, who was born in 1886 in Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, has correctly been recognised everywhere as the founder of Israel, created in 1948 by a UN resolution. But the issue that has recently been uncovered, touching off a damaging charge, emanates from the just revealed hard-line advocacy of Ben Gurion more than 10 years earlier on how to establish a firm Zionist foothold in Palestine where the majority of the population were then Arabs. » Read more

The summer of 2012 ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Uri Savir - (Opinion) April 11, 2012 - 12:00am Some time ago we saw in the brilliant television satire, Eretz Nehederet, Israelis giving up on all their summer plans, “because of that thing that will happen with Iran this summer.” “Can I give you a delayed check for this summer?” says the customer. “No, of course not,” says the shopkeeper. “Don’t you know what will happen this summer? That thing with Iran.” “Oh yes, I forgot it’s this summer!” he replies, and pays immediately. » Read more

A Dose of Nuance: Peter Beinart's mis-identity crisis ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Daniel Gordis - April 11, 2012 - 12:00am Peter Beinart is right. The relationship between American Jews and the Jewish state is indeed in crisis. Beinart and his title are just wrong about what the crisis is. What we face, as his book accidentally demonstrates, is not The Crisis of Zionism, but a crisis of American Judaism. » Read more

Egypt's army fills Sinai, but business runs as usual ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Anshel Pfeffer - (Opinion) April 12, 2012 - 12:00am Sinai, EGYPT - A bearded Bedouin approached a cab on the main street of Rafah, in Egypt. Right next to the taxi, at either end of the narrow street, were two armored personnel carriers and a squad of Egyptian army soldiers in full combat gear. » Read more

Israel's poetry critics ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times (Editorial) April 10, 2012 - 12:00am The people in Israel and Germany who are most outraged by Nobel Prize-winning author Gunter Grass' latest work have one thing in common: They think it's ridiculous, and possibly anti-Semitic, for Grass to assert a moral equivalency between Israel and Iran. Yet by overreacting to Grass' criticism, Israeli officials are acting like, well, Iranians. » Read more