Cabinet expected to curtail Barak's power to veto West Bank settlement construction
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - June 17, 2011 - 12:00am

The cabinet is expected to vote on Sunday to curtail Defense Minister Ehud Barak's authority to supervise construction in West Bank settlements. The proposal would revoke Barak's right to veto West Bank construction by the World Zionist Organization's Settlement Division. The division budgets NIS 25 million a year for this purpose. The Settlement Division was set up in 1967 after Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula. For years, it was tasked with building settlements in the West Bank and did not deal with the Negev or Galilee at all.

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Netanyahu and the Mystics of Safed
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Carlo Strenger - (Opinion) June 17, 2011 - 12:00am

Future historians looking back at Israel in 2011 will shake their heads with disbelief. They will note that there were voices of reason who called for constructive engagement with the Arab world; that these voices included some of the great luminaries of Israel’s defense establishment like former Shin Bet chiefs Yaakov Peri and Ami Ayalon, former Mossad chief Danny Yatom, former IDF chief Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and General (Res) Amram Mitzna. They will write about their Israeli Peace Initiative of 2011 that basically endorsed the Arab League Initiative.

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Benjamin Netanyahu: Why the U.S. Can’t Make Peace in the Middle East
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New Republic
by William Galston - (Opinion) June 16, 2011 - 12:00am

I’ve spent the past week in Israel listening to as many voices as I could. Based on what I’ve heard, a rough summary of the situation is this: Benjamin Netanyahu offers no viable alternative to the status quo, and the opposition offers no viable alternative to Netanyahu. Until Mahmoud Abbas recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, the prime minister says, serious talks are impossible. And besides, negotiating with a coalition that includes Hamas is unthinkable.

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Unofficial Nakba study kit a hit with teachers
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Asaf Shtull-Trauring - June 14, 2011 - 12:00am

When Shira (not her real name ), a history teacher at a junior high school in the center of the country, mentioned "nakba" in a class three years ago, none of her students had any idea what it referred to. Today, she says, the word just surfaces naturally among the students. They know about it and talk about it. According to her, the reason is clear - Amendment 40 to the Budget Foundations Law, more commonly known as the "Nakba Law."

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Palestinian PM supports Israel's Stanley Fischer for IMF top job
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
June 12, 2011 - 12:00am

Bank of Israel governor Stanley Fischer has a new and unexpected supporter in his bid to head the International Monetary Fund: the Palestinian prime minister. Salam Fayyad says Stanley Fischer would make a "great managing director" for the world financial body and is a "superb human being." The Palestinian Authority does not participate in the selection process, but Fayyad said if he had a vote, he would cast it for Fischer.

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Dagan was right about the Palestinians but wrong about Iran
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Ari Shavit - (Opinion) June 9, 2011 - 12:00am

My gut feeling is that Meir Dagan is mistaken about Iran. The former Mossad chief recently said it would be stupid for Israel to attack Iran. For three years there was great tension in the international community over the possibility that Israel would launch a surprise attack. But then just last year, the tension subsided. The success of the clandestine struggle against Iran and of economic sanctions against the regime have put off the moment of truth. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are not as crazy as some tend to present them.

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Israel-Iran behind the door dealings
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Khalaf Al Habtoor - (Opinion) June 8, 2011 - 12:00am

A scandal that has recently erupted in Israel concerning a private Israeli shipping and transport group — Ofer Brothers — that sold a tanker to Iran via a well-known Iranian front company and has been transporting petroleum products to and from Iran for a decade, heightens my suspicions that nothing is what it seems in the dirty world of geopolitics.

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Israel’s ‘Mr. Security’ Goes Rogue
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by J.J. Goldberg - (Opinion) June 8, 2011 - 12:00am

Official Jerusalem has been thrown into a world-class tizzy this spring by what some top figures are calling a serious security breach, committed by one of the highest-ranking Israeli officials ever accused of endangering the Jewish state. There have been cabinet-level calls for his indictment. The Knesset is considering draconian new legislation to outlaw the sort of leak he perpetrated. It looks like serious stuff.

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False messiahs in Israel's capital
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Sefi Rachlevsky - (Opinion) June 7, 2011 - 12:00am

This summer, 1,000 rockets a day are expected to land on the inhabitants of central Israel for an undetermined period of time, with thousands of casualties on the cards. This is the reality that emerges from the assessments of the minister for the homefront, the real front, Matan Vilnai and from the recent warnings voiced by newly retired Mossad chief Meir Dagan.

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Let Dagan speak
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
(Editorial) June 5, 2011 - 12:00am

Outgoing Mossad chief Meir Dagan has been making headlines. A military strike on Iran would be a “stupid idea,” Dagan said a few weeks ago at a Hebrew University conference. At a Tel Aviv University conference last week he elaborated that such an attack “would mean regional war, and in that case you would have given Iran the best possible reason to continue the nuclear program.”

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