Rabbis refuse questioning over war book
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Yaakov Lappin - August 10, 2010 - 12:00am

Two prominent rabbis from the national-religious camp refused police requests on Monday that they undergo questioning for their endorsements of a controversial book authored by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar. The book, Torat Hamalech (The King’s Torah), discusses the rules of war and states that in certain situations, non-Jews can be killed. The book has attracted a firestorm of controversy since being published in 2009, and police questioned Shapira over the text last month while raiding his yeshiva, Od Yosef Chai, in Yitzhar in order to confiscate copies.

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Bibi’s catastrophic testimony
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Nahum Barnea - August 10, 2010 - 12:00am

For weeks, Benjamin Netanyahu prepared for his appearance before the Turkel Committee. First, he hired the services of Dori Klagsblad, a top-notch lawyer considered the greatest expert on overcoming commissions of inquiry. The attorney briefed the prime minister, prepared a list of possible questions, and drafted answered memorized by the PM.

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The new ghetto
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Yossi Beilin - (Opinion) August 9, 2010 - 12:00am

Political Zionism led by Theodor Herzl would not have come into existence were it not for anti-Semitism in Europe, pogroms in Russia and a fear lest the emergence of the Jews from the ghetto and their integration into the economic, political, media and academic systems of the day provoke a sharp and violent reaction. There were alternative Jewish movements aimed at reaching the Land of Israel on the basis of religious motives or in order to build a new society founded on agricultural settlement and social justice. But that was not the Zionist movement as established in 1897.

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Is Bibi becoming a dove?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by D. Bloomfield - August 5, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has done what Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu could never do for himself – transform the Israeli leader’s image from hawk to dove. And he had help from American, European and even Arab leaders who are urging Abbas to quit dawdling and meet the Israeli prime minister at the peace table. The Obama administration weighed in Monday with State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley publicly warning Abbas “there are consequences to failing to take advantage of this opportunity.”

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Israel Fights Isolation With New Measures
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Gal Beckerman - August 4, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel is taking significant new steps to relieve its international isolation following the fatal raid on a humanitarian flotilla and the accusatory Goldstone Report.

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Is one-state solution an answer to Greater Israel dreams?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Leslie Susser - August 3, 2010 - 12:00am

In one of the more curious twists in Israeli politics, prominent figures on Israel’s right wing have begun pushing for a one-state solution with Israelis and Palestinians as equal citizens with full voting rights. The one-state solution previously had been the preserve of the post-Zionist left, Palestinian hard-liners and left-leaning European intellectuals who envisioned turning Israel proper, the West Bank and Gaza into a single state in which the Palestinians soon would become the majority and assume the reins of government.

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Who will speak up for Israeli citizens' right to free speech?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Daphna Baram - (Opinion) August 3, 2010 - 12:00am

The most widely mentioned text in Israel over the last few weeks has been the famous quotation by Pastor Martin Niemöller from 1946, which begins: "First they came for the Communists".

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A barely tolerated minority
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Daniel Seidemann - July 30, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas-affiliated Palestinian parliament member Mohammed Abu Tir - renowned for his bright orange beard - is my neighbor in Jerusalem. We live about a mile apart. I've never met him, nor do I care to. I have no illusions about Hamas. Abu Tir has just been released after spending four years in Israeli jail in because of his membership of the Change and Reform Party, which is associated with Hamas (and which both Israel and the Palestinian Authority allowed to participate in the 2006 legislative elections ). He is now facing exile. Not new charges, not a new indictment, not a trial.

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Student Injury at Protest Leads to Battle in Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - July 28, 2010 - 12:00am

A macabre legal wrangle is under way over who should pay the hospital bill for an American art student who lost an eye after being struck by a tear-gas canister fired by an Israeli border police officer at a Palestinian-led protest in the West Bank. The student, Emily Henochowicz, 21, was injured on May 31 after she joined Palestinian and foreign activists protesting that morning’s deadly raid by Israeli naval commandos on a Turkish boat trying to breach the blockade of Gaza. Israeli security forces fired tear gas to disperse the demonstration after a few Palestinian youths threw rocks.

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Israel razes homes in Bedouin village
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - July 28, 2010 - 12:00am

For the sixth time in a decade, farmer Ismail Mohamed Salem watched Israeli bulldozers raze his home in this disputed Bedouin village. Hours later, he sat next to the rubble and vowed to rebuild — yet again. "This is my land," said Salem, 70, as his grandchildren lay sleeping on straw mats next to the demolished structure, now a 20-foot pile of twisted aluminum, broken concrete and splintered wood. "Why should I leave?" Salem's home was among 45 demolished early Tuesday as part of a long-running dispute between Arab tribes in the Negev desert and the Israeli government.

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