The ultra-Orthodox tighten their grip in Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Ruth Marcus - (Opinion) August 7, 2012 - 12:00am

The rock hit Nili Philipp on the side of her helmet as she biked last year along the main road in this Jerusalem suburb. A few years earlier, the spitting had begun, as Philipp jogged on a road bordering an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. Men called her names: Shikseh, the derogatory term for a Gentile woman. Prutzah, whore.

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After seven years, Gaza evacuees are growing distant from the settler movement
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ben Sales - August 7, 2012 - 12:00am

From an overlooking road, the district of this desert town called Nitzan B seems like a unified mass of identical red-roofed single-family homes, reminiscent of a crowded American postwar Levittown. “From far away it looks nice,” says Galit Kakon, a Nitzan B resident. Like the rest of the district’s 600 families, Kakon used to live in Gush Katif, the bloc of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip that Israel evacuated seven years ago this week in an operation called "the disengagement."

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New regulation may bar migrants, Palestinians from filing lawsuits in Israeli courts
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Tomer Zarchin - August 6, 2012 - 12:00am

Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman has signed on regulations that require plaintiffs to cite their Israeli ID numbers or foreign passport numbers on the documents they file. Although the ministry said the cases of individuals such as migrant workers, Palestinian residents of the territories and stateless individuals who have no passport will be referred to a registrar or judge, civil rights activists say the new regulation will bar those without foreign passports from filing lawsuits in Israeli courts.

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Israel’s future depends on two states
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by David Halperin, Peter A. Joseph - (Opinion) August 6, 2012 - 12:00am

The Israel Policy Forum clearly struck a chord when it sent a letter signed by a politically diverse group of over 40 philanthropists and Jewish leaders to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu urging him not to adopt the Levy Report.

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Israel Must Accommodate The Arabic Language
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Yedioth Ahronoth
by Gilad Kariv - (Opinion) August 6, 2012 - 12:00am

Not long ago while on an El Al flight, I received an explanation from a service manager about the plane’s sound system. On a list hung on the side of the control box was a roster of the numerous languages used in the in-flight announcements. Only one language did not appear: Israel's second official language, Arabic.

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Israel’s Fading Democracy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Avraham Burg - (Opinion) August 4, 2012 - 12:00am

When an American presidential candidate visits Israel and his key message is to encourage us to pursue a misguided war with Iran, declaring it “a solemn duty and a moral imperative” for America to stand with our warmongering prime minister, we know that something profound and basic has changed in the relationship between Israel and the United States.

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As Netanyahu pushes Israel closer to war with Iran, Israelis cannot keep silent
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by David Grossman - (Opinion) August 3, 2012 - 12:00am

Here's a possible scenario: Israel attacks Iran despite the strenuous opposition of President Barack Obama, who is practically pleading that Israel leave the work to the United States. Why? Because Benjamin Netanyahu has a historical mind-set and a historical outlook under which, basically, Israel is "the eternal nation" and the United States, with all due respect, is just the Assyria or the Babylonia, the Greece or the Rome, of our age.

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Israel realizes: Only US can stop Iran
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ron Ben-Yishai - (Opinion) August 3, 2012 - 12:00am

It's a known secret that the IDF and the security establishment have been focused over the past few years on creating a viable military option for a strike in Iran. Israel has invested billions in this endeavor. The goal was to obtain operational capabilities that would serve as the basis for a strike, which, if launched, would set Iran's nuclear program several years back.

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Missiles on Tel Aviv will unleash unprecedented response: Israeli former intelligence chief
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
August 3, 2012 - 12:00am

Israel's former army intelligence chief said Thursday that a missile attack by foes against Greater Tel Aviv would mean that "Israel's legitimacy to take action will drastically increase." Speaking at a conference on "Israel's Home Front Preparedness," retired Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin sought to quell concerns over recent assessments that Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas could wield unprecedented 200,000 missiles and rockets in any future conflict. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has repeated threat to target Tel Aviv.

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Don't attack Iran now, warns ex-IDF intel chief
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Yaakov Katz - August 3, 2012 - 12:00am

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Aharon Ze’evi Farkash is worried. So worried that he decided this week to break his longstanding silence on Iran and to share his concerns with the world.

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