King's Torah splits Israel's religious and secular Jews
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Yolande Knell - July 19, 2011 - 12:00am

Recent protests in Israel highlight the differences between the country's religious and secular Jewish communities. Hundreds of right-wing Jews have taken part in demonstrations outside Israel's Supreme Court over the brief detention of two prominent rabbis in the last few weeks. There were clashes with police on horseback on the nearby Jerusalem streets and several arrests were made.

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The Forgotten Incentive of Settlement Businesses
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post
by Hagit Ofran - (Opinion) July 19, 2011 - 12:00am

There is a sense of outrage within the Israeli public following the passing of "the boycott law" in the Knesset last week. The law allows any individual or institution who faces possible damage as a result of any person's call for boycott settlement products to sue that person. Evidence of actual damage will not be required. Organizations calling for such boycott could lose their legal standing as non profit organization.

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Noam Sheizaf: Worrying About Israeli Democracy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Forward
by Noam Sheizaf - (Opinion) July 19, 2011 - 12:00am

A few minutes after midnight on July 11, the night the Knesset passed its anti-boycott law, a hundred or so young Israelis gathered at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. Since the square is being renovated, they clustered along one of its edges. Some of them improvised protest signs, facing them towards busy Ibn Gvirol Avenue. Others were chatting. After about an hour, it was all over. Watching from the bustling pubs and coffee shops on the other side of the street, it was impossible to tell that Israeli democracy had just suffered its worst blow in years.

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Arab MK stripped of further parliamentary privileges for role in Gaza flotilla
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Jonathan Lis - July 18, 2011 - 12:00am

Israeli Arab MK Hanin Zuabi will be stripped of her right to address the Knesset and to participate in committee votes until the end of this parliamentary season, the Knesset Ethics Committee ruled on Monday. The decision to penalize Zuabi, a lawmaker from the Balad party, comes in the wake of her participation in the Gaza-bound flotilla last year. Zuabi, who sailed on the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, had already had certain parliamentary rights revoked by Knesset last July. Zuabi will still be allowed to vote in debates at the Knesset plenum, the ethics committee ruled Monday.

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Do not speak, do not resist - Israel rules out non-violence
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Jonathan Cook - (Opinion) July 18, 2011 - 12:00am

It was an Arab legislator who made the most telling comment to the Israeli parliament last week as it passed the boycott law, which outlaws calls to boycott Israel or its settlements in the occupied territories. Ahmed Tibi asked: "What is a peace activist or Palestinian allowed to do to oppose the occupation? Is there anything you agree to?" The boycott law is the latest in a series of ever-more draconian laws being introduced by the far-right. The legislation's goal is to intimidate those Israelis who have yet to bow down before the majority-rule mob.

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Not Befitting a Democracy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
(Editorial) July 17, 2011 - 12:00am

Israel’s reputation as a vibrant democracy has been seriously tarnished by a new law intended to stifle outspoken critics of its occupation of the West Bank. The law, approved in a 47-to-38 vote by Parliament, effectively bans any public call for a boycott — economic, cultural or academic — against Israel or its West Bank settlements, making such action a punishable offense.

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Rattling the Cage: Bring it on, National Camp
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Larry Derfner - (Opinion) July 16, 2011 - 12:00am

As the late, great V.I. Lenin said, the worse things get, the better they get. (Or did Mao say that?) Anyway, it’s all good. The anti-boycott law, the Nakba law, the loyalty oath(s), the hometown ethnic purity law, the Cuban-missile-crisis reaction to the flotillas – that’s what we want to see. This week, the Knesset’s going to vote to summon left-wing NGOs for public interrogation? Can’t wait.

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The boycott law and bullshit
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Carlo Strenger - (Blog) July 15, 2011 - 12:00am

MK Zeev Elkin, who initiated the boycott law that was passed by the Knesset this Monday, said that the law was not meant to silence people, but to “protect the citizens of Israel.” Elkin’s statement would, in and of itself, not carry much interest, if it didn’t highlight a hallmark of the eighteenth Knesset that is undermining Israel as a liberal democracy step by step.

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Why Israelis must fight against the boycott law
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) July 14, 2011 - 12:00am

I have never preached publicly to others to boycott the products of the settlements. Everyone should follow his own conscience. Just as I try to buy blue-and-white Israeli products, I also try not to buy "black": products with a very black flag flying over them, a flag of injustice and theft. The Boycott Law that was passed this week is causing me to change direction: From now on I will publicly preach to others, too, not to buy black products. Yes, boycott them!

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Undemocratic, immoral law
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Nechama Duek - (Opinion) July 14, 2011 - 12:00am

The Boycott Law’s approval by the Knesset turned Israel and us, its citizens, into members in a club I would not want to be a member of. The boycotters club. In other words, the new law calls for boycotting the boycotters. This law wishes to silence people, stifle a different kind of thinking, and force people to do things that contradict their conscience, beliefs and democratic right.

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