MK Danny Danon is the new McCarthy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) July 21, 2011 - 12:00am

A bit less of a Kahanist than National Union MK Michael Ben Ari, a bit less of a garbler than Likud MK Yariv Levin and a bit less pompous than Likud MK Ofir Akunis, Likud MK Danny Danon will go far. He's a member of the ruling party and is definitely going to show all those leftists and Arabs. He has already threatened them once: The party is over. Yesterday he acted once again to implement his threat.

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Washington Watch: Threatening Israeli democracy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Douglas Bloomfield - (Opinion) July 21, 2011 - 12:00am

If Bibi Netanyahu had been a young, white Jew growing up in Mississippi in the 1960s instead of the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he might take a different view of boycotts. He would understand that political protests strengthen democracy, and that laws restricting free speech and association weaken the fiber of a nation.

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Israel is afraid of peaceful protest for good reason
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) July 21, 2011 - 12:00am

Over 63 years, Palestinians have not only had to resist Israel's occupation, but also the propaganda campaign that justifies acts of aggression as the "right of self-defence". Killing non-violent protesters, Palestinian or otherwise, is not self-defence. That obvious truth is staring Israel in the face. New peaceful demonstrations inspired by the Arab spring, as well as the Palestinian Authority's bid for UN recognition as an independent state, have shown that Israel is far more comfortable dealing with Qassam rocket attacks than it is with intelligent, non-violent resistance.

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Israeli lawmakers kill bill to probe dovish groups
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
July 20, 2011 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — Israel's parliament has voted down a bill that would have established an inquiry commission to investigate foreign funding of dovish activist groups. The vote followed approval this week of a bill targeting Israelis who promote boycotts against Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Dovish lawmakers denounced both laws as antidemocratic attempts to stifle free expression. Laws of the type defeated Wednesday show growing polarization in Israeli society.

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The glue holding Netanyahu’s coalition: hatred for liberal values
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Carlo Strenger - (Blog) July 20, 2011 - 12:00am

The sound and the fury of Israel's anti-boycott law has not yet died down: Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party is reviving its push for a Knesset committee that will investigate ‘leftist organizations’; for the time being, the initiative to give the Knesset a veto right to reject candidates for the Supreme Court on the basis of their political views has been blocked, but it may well resurface.

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More evidence of Israeli racism
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
(Editorial) July 20, 2011 - 12:00am

No one should be surprised by the Israeli Knesset's decision to suspend Palestinian Member of Parliament Haneen Zoabi due to her participation in last year's bloody Gaza Flotilla. The Knesset Ethics Committee, which investigated her flotilla participation, is punishing Zoabi for exercising her legitimate right of political activism. Essentially, it is silencing an Arab member for representing her constituency. The bigger picture reveals that it is trying to wipe out any Arab presence in the Israeli government.

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It sure looks and smells like apartheid
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) July 20, 2011 - 12:00am

The Israeli parliament’s vote last week making it a crime to support any boycott of Israel, including products from Israeli settlements in occupied Arab lands, has rightly generated considerable debate about what this means for Israel, Zionism and Israelis.

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Yes Mr. Lieberman, I'm a proud Jewish terrorist
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Shlomo Gazit - (Opinion) July 19, 2011 - 12:00am

In 1942, as a young boy, a high school student in Tel Aviv, I joined the Haganah (the main pre-state underground Jewish militia). The British Mandatory government considered me, and others who did as I did, to be members of an illegal organization. Two years later I enlisted in the Palmach, the elite strike force of the Haganah, and during my period of activity in the framework of the Jewish resistance movement the British government considered me a "terrorist." Afterwards I fought in the War of Independence and spent another 32 years in the Israel Defense Forces as a career soldier.

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Israel’s anti-democratic impulses grow
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from NOW Lebanon
by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) July 19, 2011 - 12:00am

A recently-passed anti-boycott law in Israel allows anyone advocating a boycott of the country or “areas under its control”—in other words the settlements—to be sued by private citizens and denied government benefits and contracts. This egregious attack on freedom of speech and conscience is a symptom of several deep-seated problems that are having a profoundly negative effect on Israel’s international standing and on prospects for peace with the Palestinians.

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Americans for Peace Now: We’ll boycott the anti-boycott law by boycotting settlement products
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ami Eden - (Blog) July 19, 2011 - 12:00am

If the goal of the new Israeli law banning boycotts was actually to prevent boycotts... things aren't exactly going according to plan. The board of Americans for Peace Now has unanimously endorsed a boycott of products made in the settlements. Why? Well, it has nothing to do with the settlements. The group says it's boycotting settlement products in order to protest the anti-boycott law. Here's the statement from APN's president and CEO Debra DeLee:

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