Lieberman is Kahane. And even the right senses it
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Bradley Burston - October 21, 2010 - 12:00am

Is anyone on the mainstream Jewish right – anyone at all – willing to speak in defense of Avigdor Lieberman, the bully in the china shop of Israel's relationship with its Arab minority? In particular, is anyone on the mainstream right prepared to step up and support his fascism bandwagon's snorting, noxious draft horse – the loyalty oath initiative? Not the Zionist Organization of America. Normally a hair-trigger media machine, the hard-right ZOA has been uncharacteristically silent on Lieberman's showcase bill.

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Israel marks 15 years since Rabin assassination
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Diaa Hadid - October 20, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel on Wednesday marked 15 years since Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist who opposed his concessions for peace with the Palestinians. At ceremonies around the country, speakers assessed Rabin's legacy, and many warned that the incitement to violence that preceded his assassination has not disappeared.

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Israel pushes Palestinians to acknowledge its Jewish character
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - October 19, 2010 - 12:00am

It sounds at first like a familiar Mideast tussle: Israel demands recognition, Arabs refuse to give it. But Israel's recent push to be recognized as a "Jewish" state is actually a new twist on an old struggle, and one that is rapidly turning into the latest stumbling block to faltering peace talks. Israel defines itself as a Jewish state in its declaration of independence. U.S. Presidents Obama and George W. Bush have embraced the term, which was used in the 1947 U.N. resolution calling for the establishment of two states, one Jewish and the other Palestinian Arab.

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Israeli-Arabs fear for their future
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Rachel Shabi - October 19, 2010 - 12:00am

Like other Arab citizens of Israel, Leyla Ahmoud is anxious about her future. A young mother of two girls with another on the way, Ahmoud says recent moves by the Israeli government are making it increasingly obvious that the Arabs are not welcome in their own country. "I feel like my life is not in my hands," said 24-year-old Ahmoud, who lives in Umm al-Fahm, a mountain-ridge town of some 43,000 inhabitants in northern Israel. "The government decides how I live and where I live. We exist in fear, from one day to the next."

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Animated Ariel Sharon coma sculpture on show in Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
October 19, 2010 - 12:00am

A life-size sculpture of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is due to be unveiled at a gallery in Tel Aviv. The installation, by Israeli artist Noam Braslavsky, portrays Mr Sharon lying in a hospital bed in the coma he has been in since 2006. Curators said the installation, which appears to breathe, was an allegory for the "inertia of Israeli politics". Mr Sharon was one of Israel's most influential leaders. He has never recovered from a massive stroke. The 82-year-old remains in hospital in Tel Aviv, having never regained consciousness after suffering the stroke four years ago.

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Abbas: Netanyahu fears govt collapse
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
October 18, 2010 - 12:00am

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu told him he could not extend the settlement moratorium "because he fears his government might collapse." In an interview with Israel's Channel 1, Abbas further said "the government isn't more valuable than peace, neither is it more valuable than the future of both peoples."

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Debasing a foundational idea
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Michael Herzog - (Opinion) October 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that until Israel apologized for its May attack on a Gaza-bound aid ship in which nine Turkish citizens were killed it would remain isolated in the Middle East. “Israel must apologize to Turkey and pay compensation for the state terrorism in the Mediterranean," Erdogan said while addressing members of his Islamic-oriented party at a weekend retreat, adding that "If it does not, it will be doomed to remain isolated in the Middle East.”

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West of the 'Auschwitz borders'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) October 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Not long ago, during a meeting with foreign reporters, Avigdor Lieberman quoted a statement attributed to Abba Eban describing the 1967 borders as "Auschwitz borders." Immediately afterward, the foreign minister presented the "plan" to move territories west of those "Auschwitz borders" so they would be under the jurisdiction of a foreign element (namely, the Palestinians ) which, he claimed, seeks to throw the Jews into the sea. In order to be rid of the Arab population in Israel in return for annexing the "settlement blocs," Lieberman proposes contracting Israel's narrow waist even further.

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Israel: ‘Loyalty Oath’ Bill to Change to Include Jews, Netanyahu Says
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
October 18, 2010 - 12:00am

The government will amend a bill to require that all immigrants, not just non-Jews, take a loyalty pledge, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday. Opposition lawmakers had denounced the bill, whose original language was directed only at non-Jewish immigrants, saying it undermined the rights of Israel’s minority Arab community. Thousands have protested the bill, which calls for an oath of loyalty to a “Jewish and democratic” Israel.


Who made Netanyahu the leader of the Jewish people?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Tony Karon - (Opinion) October 18, 2010 - 12:00am

'Next, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will insist that he can't make peace with the Palestinians until they recognise the Jews as the Chosen People." That was the sarcastic tweet of one Jewish-American analyst on Israel's demand that Palestinians recognise it not only as a "Jewish state", but as "the national home of the Jewish people".

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