Netanyahu weakens Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Tzipi Livni - (Opinion) September 23, 2011 - 12:00am

Regrettably, remaining at an indecisive junction prompts Israel to slide uncontrollably down a slippery slope. What we argued ever since the government was formed has turned - to my regret as an Israeli citizen - into a fact known to all: The diplomatic impasse is leading to diplomatic isolation. This diplomatic isolation undermines Israel’s security and its ability to defend itself. The attempt to avoid decisions creates a situation whereby the world decides for us, and not in our favor.

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Palestine an Israeli interest
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Frances Raday - (Opinion) September 22, 2011 - 12:00am

The Israeli government has brought us to absurdity, using all its powers of diplomatic persuasion to preempt UN recognition of a Palestinian state, when it is in Israel’s strategic interest that Palestine should be recognized as a state. A march of folly has brought us to this point: the settlement policy of this and previous governments and Netanyahu’s failure to promote genuine negotiations with the moderate leadership of Abbas and Fayyad, to make concessions, which are in any case foregone conclusions, or to freeze building in occupied areas.

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The Tsuris
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from New York Magazine
by John Heilemann - (Opinion) September 20, 2011 - 12:00am

The last time Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu shared each other’s company, you could say that the encounter did not go well—if by “not well” you mean abysmally. This was on May 20, the day after Obama gave his big speech on the Arab Spring, in which he unleashed a tsunami of tsuris by endorsing the use of Israel’s 1967 borders “with mutually agreed [land] swaps” as the basis for a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

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Israel: Adrift at Sea Alone
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Thomas L. Friedman - (Opinion) September 17, 2011 - 12:00am

I’VE never been more worried about Israel’s future. The crumbling of key pillars of Israel’s security — the peace with Egypt, the stability of Syria and the friendship of Turkey and Jordan — coupled with the most diplomatically inept and strategically incompetent government in Israel’s history have put Israel in a very dangerous situation.

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Digging in, the essence of Netanyahu's foreign policy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Aluf Benn - (Analysis) September 16, 2011 - 12:00am

The years-long diplomatic effort to integrate Israel as an accepted neighbor in the Middle East collapsed this week, with the expulsion of the Israeli ambassadors from Ankara and Cairo, and the rushed evacuation of the embassy staff from Amman. This is the lowest point in Israeli foreign policy since the groundbreaking visit to Jerusalem by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1977. The region is spewing out the Jewish state, which is increasingly shutting itself off behind fortified walls, under a leadership that refuses any change, movement or reform and is dealing with debacle after debacle.

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Diplomatic maelstrom
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff - (Analysis) September 16, 2011 - 12:00am

The cabinet ministers' diagnosis last week that Israel is facing its most complex strategic situation in decades is turning out to be correct. Even before the focus shifts to the Palestinian arena, with the bid by the Palestinian Authority to have the United Nations recognize it as a state, Israel has had to deal with the return home of senior envoys from three of the region's most important countries.

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Israel okays PA's acquisition of anti-riot gear ahead of UN vote
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel - September 15, 2011 - 12:00am

Israel has given approval for the Palestinian Authority to equip its security forces with riot-control gear, such as tear gas grenades and rubber bullets. The PA has approached Israeli firms to buy such equipment in advance of expected demonstrations on the West Bank around the Palestinians' request for United Nations recognition as an independent state.

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Israel and New York’s Ninth District
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
(Editorial) September 15, 2011 - 12:00am

There has already been a lot of theorizing about why a little-known Republican businessman, Bob Turner, won Tuesday’s special Congressional election in a traditionally Democratic New York City district. The grim economy appears to have been a big factor in his victory over Assemblyman David Weprin, and some voters also complained about Mr. Weprin’s principled vote in Albany to legalize gay marriage, which was anathema to many ultra-Orthodox Jewish voters.

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Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period.
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) September 15, 2011 - 12:00am

What will we tell the world next week, at the UN? What could we say? Whether in the General Assembly or the Security Council, we will be exposed in all our nakedness: Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period. And it doesn't have a single persuasive argument against the establishment and the international recognition of such a state.

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Israel - ‘Yes’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Uri Savir - (Opinion) September 15, 2011 - 12:00am

On November 29, 1947, the people of the future Israel were glued to the radio, listening to the United Nations vote on the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. We can still hear in our collective memory the speaker announce – “Soviet Union – Yes, United States – Yes” and then the majority affirmative vote.

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