Hamas Maintains Ties With Iran Despite Difference Over Syria ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor by Abeer Ayyoub - January 25, 2013 - 1:00am The positive outcomes of the Arab uprisings far outweighed the negatives for Gaza’s ruling Islamists, Hamas. The revolts led to the rise of fellow Islamists in Egypt and Tunisia, allowing Hamas to open up to the regional environment. But the ongoing uprising in Syria did not fit well for Hamas, which found itself caught between two hard options: siding with President Bashar al-Assad and thus losing popular support in other Arab countries, or showing solidarity with the Syrian people and losing Iran, Hamas' main financial backer. » Read more

Hezbollah Satisfied With Israeli Election Results ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor by Nasser Chararah - (Opinion) January 25, 2013 - 1:00am Hezbollah has several departments that specialize in monitoring events in Israel. They monitor everything that happens in Israel, then analyze that information by cross-checking it with privately-collected information. Inside these departments is a unit whose roots in monitoring Israeli events go back the 1975-1981 era, when the Palestinian Fatah movement was a state within a state and had its various institutions stationed in Lebanon. » Read more

A shift to Israel’s center? Think again ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) January 26, 2013 - 1:00am All that can be said with certainty now about the Israeli election results is that the deck of political cards in the Knesset has been dramatically reshuffled: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition with Avigdor Lieberman won 31 seats (much less than expected, and down from the 41 seats it held before) and remains the single largest group; the extreme right Bayit Yehudi party of Naftali Bennett took 11 seats; and Yair Lapid’s new Yesh Atid party made the biggest splash with its 19 seats (m » Read more

No, Israel Did Not Just Vote for the Center ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Affairs by Michael Koplow - (Opinion) January 23, 2013 - 1:00am By the time Israeli voters went to the polls on Tuesday, the nearly universally accepted wisdom held that the right was ascendant. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's faction -- which comprises his own conservative Likud Party and Avigdor Lieberman's even-more-conservative Yisrael Beiteinu Party -- was poised to win almost twice as many seats as its closest challenger. » Read more

Israel Closes Its Eyes ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Hayat by Elias Harfoush - (Opinion) January 25, 2013 - 1:00am "Live in Israel as if you are living in Europe or the United States." This was the slogan that Yair Lapid used to lure Israeli voters, leading him to second place in the country's recent elections, becoming the kingmaker who will determine the rules of the game in Israel in the coming future. » Read more

Abbas waiting for Yair ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Smadar Peri - (Opinion) January 27, 2013 - 1:00am The easiest thing to do is to recite "Abbas is not a partner" and talk about his interview over the weekend with a restless Lebanese interviewer who did all he could to get an anti-Israel headline out of the Palestinian leader. » Read more

Israelis who hoped for peace progress should expect to be disappointed ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Adrian Daniels - (Opinion) January 28, 2013 - 1:00am To the same degree that the campaign itself was lifeless and predictable, the results of Israel's general election have invigorated and excited Israel's center and Zionist Left. » Read more

Europe needs to re-commit to the peace process now ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Ilan Baruch - (Opinion) January 28, 2013 - 1:00am Hot on the heels of the 1979 Camp David Peace Accords, signed by the leaders of Egypt and Israel and under the watchful eyes of President Carter, the European Community formulated its own key statement of Middle East policy, the Venice Declaration, signed by the heads of the European Community on June 13th 1980. » Read more

Jerusalem soccer fans' racism is a microcosm of Israel 2013 ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Elad Lipshitz - (Opinion) January 28, 2013 - 1:00am The logic of Beitar Jerusalem is a reflection on Israel 2013. If Yair Lapid doesn’t count Balad MK Hanin Zuabi, then a Muslim cannot play on the capital’s soccer team. Some people in the eastern stands at Teddy Stadium are convinced that Muslims are born different and even develop differently in their mothers’ wombs. And we’re not talking about a few people - there are many of them, apparently thousands. » Read more

Ehud Barak at Davos: U.S. Could Strike Iran to Block Nuclear Progress ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast (Interview) January 25, 2013 - 1:00am Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is confident, he says, that the United States has plans for surgical strikes against Iran as a last-ditch measure if Tehran refuses to stop its development of a nuclear weapons capability. » Read more