Why the American silence on Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) August 23, 2012 - 12:00am It is a fact of life that in an American national elections, held once in four years, foreign policy is not a contentious issue. But this time around the policies of Israel, a revered ally of various US administrations, has time and again hit the front pages and, occasionally, the opinion pages of leading US newspapers but with hardly any serious criticism. » Read more

Time to Authorize Use of Force Against Iran ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Weekly Standard by Elliott Abrams - (Opinion) August 21, 2012 - 12:00am How America can stop what theNew York Times calls “Israel’s March to War” is the hot topic this month. The issue—for the Times—is whether Israel is on the verge of bombing Iran’s nuclear sites, or can be persuaded to delay that decision and rely on the United States instead. This is what a parade of U.S. officials visiting Jerusalem this summer have counseled (and pressured) Israel to do. But the comments of Israel’s top officials suggest that its patience is wearing thin and that it may act soon, in weeks if not months. » Read more

Ex-AIPAC Flack to Head The Israel Project ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Nathan Guttman - (Opinion) August 22, 2012 - 12:00am The Israel Project, one of the country’s fastest-growing pro-Israel advocacy groups, is on the brink of new leadership and a revised set of goals. Founded a decade ago to influence journalists and other media professionals by connecting them with timely, pro-Israel information, The Israel Project announced on August 22 that Josh Block, a former spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, will be its new CEO. He will succeed the group’s founder and president, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, who stepped down earlier this year. » Read more

Hamas’s corruption ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Jonathan Schachter - (Opinion) August 23, 2012 - 12:00am The regional standing of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist faction born in 1987 as a Muslim Brotherhood splinter group, has undoubtedly been buoyed by the meteoric rise of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. But a potentially bigger factor has been the precipitous decline of its rival, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority government, led by the secular Fatah faction. » Read more

Two-faced occupier ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star (Opinion) August 23, 2012 - 12:00am Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was once a nightclub bouncer in Soviet Moldova, born and raised outside Israel. He is a settler par excellence and in the perfect position for somebody with the track record of premier Benjamin Netanyahu to appoint him as foreign minister, in order to use him as the front man for any dirty work. » Read more

Liberman’s letter ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post (Editorial) August 23, 2012 - 12:00am In a letter to the Middle East Quartet – the US, UN, EU and Russia – Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman called for long overdue Palestinian elections that would oust Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Liberman went on to enumerate a list of positive Israeli gestures toward the PA, which have been answered by the Palestinian leadership with legal and diplomatic warfare, instead of constructive dialogue. » Read more

A minister who’s a ticking bomb ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz (Editorial) August 23, 2012 - 12:00am Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has apparently decided to break his long silence and no longer spare the Israeli public and the world from his opinions. In his letter to the Middle East Quartet, as reported in Wednesday’s Haaretz, Lieberman calls for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas − whom he says is “personally acting to undermine” the peace process − to be removed and replaced in new PA elections. » Read more

Islamophobia, not Islam, will be the end of Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Bradley Burston - (Opinion) August 21, 2012 - 12:00am Everyone knows how it works. Everyone knows what it sounds like. Everyone knows how easy it is to get away with it. Everyone knows, deep down, that hatred feeds on tolerance. That however well-intentioned, a society's forbearance for the toxic slur, for the poison of ethnic or religious or racial prejudice, does hatred invaluable service. » Read more

US Scholars: Designate Israeli Extremists as Terrorists ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor by Laura Rozen - August 22, 2012 - 12:00am Amid a rising spate of Jewish extremist violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank, two prominent US Middle East scholars are urging the United States to officially designate as terrorists those Israeli extremists who perpetrate terrorist violence against Palestinian civilians, Israeli citizens and even moderate elements of the settler movement. » Read more

EU, UN call on Israel to stop Har Homa construction ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Tovah Lazaroff - August 23, 2012 - 12:00am The EU and the UN on Wednesday called on Israel to stop Jewish building in east Jerusalem in response to the publication last week of tenders for 130 new units in the Har Homa neighborhood. “The EU has repeatedly urged the government of Israel to immediately end all settlement activities in the West Bank, including in east Jerusalem,” the office of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement it released to the media. It noted that their office had already spoken out against plans for these units last summer. » Read more