Students should visit Hebron
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Susan Hattis Rolef - (Opinion) February 5, 2012 - 1:00am

Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s March 2011 decision to initiate a program whereby students from national and national- religious schools visit Hebron and its environs, exposing the students to the historical connection of the Jewish people to “the Land of the Patriarchs,” was without doubt a legitimate one.

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Reality Check: Visit both sides of Hebron
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Jeff Barak - (Opinion) February 5, 2012 - 1:00am

One of my regrets, despite having lived in Israel for more than quarter of a century, is never having visited Hebron. I can still remember the lessons in heder about the Cave of the Patriarchs, which the Bible relates was bought by Abraham for 400 shekels as a burial place for his wife, Sarah, and where the religious believe Abraham himself, and his son and grandson, Isaac and Jacob, alongside their wives (except for Jacob’s second wife Rachel) are also buried.

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Politicians can fight all day, Netanyahu is here to stay
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yoel Marcus - (Opinion) February 3, 2012 - 1:00am

If we keep using letters in every sex scandal or quasi-scandal, we run the risk of using up the alphabet. Did N. harass R.? And what was P.'s mobile phone doing near R.'s skirt? And suppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office is being run scandalously, and the bureau chief, with everything on his plate, has to update Sara about what's happening in our little world and our big world. So what?

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A foul smell is rising from Hebron, and it’s here to stay
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yossi Sarid - (Opinion) February 3, 2012 - 1:00am

What did you learn in school today, dear little child of ours? Well, dear parents, I learned a lot, and you should learn, too. This tour was a real eye-opener. Someone should be ashamed of all the lies we've been fed. And we're considered a good school, the Hebrew University high school, better known as Leyada. So, yada yada, just imagine what's happening in other schools, where they don't know anything this country from a hole in the ground.

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Israel: New Subsidies Don’t Apply to Settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Amy Teibel - February 3, 2012 - 1:00am

JERUSALEM — New financial incentives designed to lure Israelis to poorer, outlying areas have been revised to exclude West Bank settlements, officials said Thursday. A government announcement about the Cabinet decision earlier this week identified some 550 communities that qualified for the subsidies, including 70 West Bank settlements. Many of them are deep inside the West Bank, the heartland of what the Palestinians hope will be an independent state. In the original announcement, the government said the subsidies are "meant to encourage positive migration to these communities."

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Equality for Palestinians? Israel won't have it
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Ben White - (Opinion) February 3, 2012 - 1:00am

The presence of a few Palestinian members in the Knesset (MKs) is often touted as a sign of Israel's robust democracy. Yet elected representatives of the Palestinian community inside Israel face growing harassment by the state, by fellow MKs and the media. On Monday, the trial of MK Said Naffaa, from the Balad party, opened in Nazareth. Naffaa is charged with "travelling illegally to an enemy state, assisting in organising a visit to an enemy state, and being in contact with a foreign agent" – all relating to a trip he made to Syria as part of a Druze delegation in 2007.

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Netanyahu’s unnecessary committee on settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) February 1, 2012 - 1:00am

In the Likud leadership contest, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has portrayed himself as the antithesis of his challenger, the Jewish Leadership faction's Moshe Feiglin, who represents extremists among West Bank settlers. But Netanyahu's policy on settlements and unauthorized West Bank outposts, as with his "peace policy," shows that he deserves the loyalty of those extremists no less than Feiglin does.

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Hypocrisy Becoming the Norm at the Jerusalem Post?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post
by PJ Dermer, Steve White - (Opinion) February 1, 2012 - 1:00am

Jerusalem Post Editor Steve Linde's "revelation," followed by his near instantaneous retraction that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told him "the two main enemies facing Israel are the New York Times and Israeli newspaper Haaretz," only add to the hypocrisy of the mini-saga surrounding our unsuccessful effort to publish a reasoned response to the slanderous attack Jerusalem Post commentator Carolyn Glick levied against the person and character of Major General Nitzan Alon in her editorial, "Our World: Netanyahu's misleading lessons in governance."

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No Paean to Palestinian Terror
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Jeffay - January 31, 2012 - 1:00am

Jerusalem — When a government probe into allegations of treason caused the charismatic Arab politician Azmi Bishara to resign his Knesset seat and flee Israel in 2007, Dr. Ahmad Tibi, a former aide to PLO leader Yasir Arafat, leaped easily to the fore as his community’s most prominent national advocate. Like Bishara, he gained notice, too, as the Arab sector’s sharpest goad against Israel’s self-definition as a Jewish state.

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Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Re-Elected Likud Party Chairman
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Batsheva Sobelman - January 31, 2012 - 1:00am

REPORTING FROM JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was re-elected chairman of the ruling conservative Likud Party in a primary election Tuesday. The move secures Netanyahu's position as the party's candidate for the premiership in Israel's next general elections. Netanyahu defeated the only other candidate, Moshe Feiglin, by a wide margin. Feiglin heads the hawkish, ultra-national "Jewish leadership" stream of Likud and has challenged party leadership several times.

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