Internal Israeli Politics | The American Task Force on Palestine

Rift Grows Between Israeli Leaders Over Relations With U.S.
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - October 3, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — A growing rift between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Ehud Barak, a political rival, centers on Israel’s strategic relations with the United States as Mr. Barak tries to turn the tension between Mr. Netanyahu and Washington to his political advantage.

News Analysis: Israeli PM's swipe at defense minister sparks election fever
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by Adam Gonn - October 3, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday criticized Defense Minister Ehud Barak for his involvement in Israel-U.S. relations and thereby reignited speculation about earlier parliamentary elections,possibly as early as February 2013.

Are Israelis truly a peace-seeking people?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Ravit Hecht - (Interview) October 3, 2012 - 12:00am

The yearning for peace, purportedly one of the fundamental components of Israeli society and culture, takes several forms: prayer (“May He who makes peace in the supernal regions bestow peace upon us and upon all Israel”), Zionist statements (the Scroll of Independence), songs and more.

Sakhnin incitement
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
(Editorial) October 3, 2012 - 12:00am

The country’s Arab parliamentarians managed this week to surpass even their own most strident incitement against the state that bankrolls them and guarantees their rights to subvert it. Speaking in Sakhnin at the 12th memorial to the 13 Arabs shot dead during the October 2000 riots, MKs Ahmed Tibi and Taleb a-Sanaa in effect agitated for violent vengeance, thereby ramping up already inordinately confrontational rhetoric.

Behind Henry Siegman's Turn on Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Guttman - October 2, 2012 - 12:00am

At 82, Henry Siegman felt pessimism setting in as he thought of the future of Israel and its decades-long conflict with the Palestinians. “The two-state solution,” he recently wrote “is dead.”

Netanyahu's hypocritical sermon
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yitzhak Laor - (Opinion) October 2, 2012 - 12:00am

What will future historians say about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the United Nations General Assembly last week? Not clear. This is the risk he took on - to turn himself into a laughing stock but to be remembered as part of a tragedy.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Popularity on the Upswing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Linda Gradstein - October 1, 2012 - 12:00am

As Israelis begin the observance of Sukkot, a week-long religious holiday celebrating the end of the harvest, talk on the streets is of travel plans and family visits. Many Israelis build a sukkah, an outdoor hut open to the stars, as commanded in the Bible, where they eat their meals – and where some even sleep -- for the week.

Muffling the drums of war with Iran
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Richard Cohen - (Opinion) October 1, 2012 - 12:00am

If you want to read a cautionary tale about whether Israel will attack Iran, I suggest Kurt Eichenwald’s “500 Days,” which is not about that question at all. It describes how a determined George W. Bush took the United States to war in Iraq. “This confrontation is willed by God, who wants us to use this conflict to erase His people’s enemies before a new age begins,” Bush told a bewildered French President Jacques Chirac. For some reason, Chirac thought Bush sounded fanatical.

Danny Ayalon and the Jewish refugee fallacy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Times of Israel
by Daniel Haboucha - (Opinion) October 1, 2012 - 12:00am

The Israeli government has recently launched a campaign to win international recognition for the plight of the approximately 700,000 Arab Jews, or Mizrahim, who fled their homes during the 20-odd-year period following Israel’s establishment in 1948.

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