Israel arrests ex-soldier living in Bethlehem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
June 15, 2012 - 12:00am

A former Israeli soldier was arrested recently by Palestinian Authority forces after living in a Bethlehem refugee camp for the past three weeks, Israeli daily Haaretz reported. "I wanted to prove that it’s possible to live with Palestinians, as long as you are not coming off as an enemy," Andrey Pshenichnikov, 24, was quoted as saying by Haaretz. Pshenichnikov moved to Bethlehem three months ago and was working as a waiter and construction worker.

»

Life in British Mandate Palestine
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Jerome Chanes - (Book Review) June 15, 2012 - 12:00am

Another book on “the making of Israel”? It was a scant few months ago that Gershom Gorenberg’s provocative and timely book, “The Unmaking of Israel,” was visited on the Jewish body politic. Now comes novelist Hadara Lazar’s book, “Out of Palestine,” whose subtitle, “The Making of Modern Israel,” may gull and lull many a reader, but this reader was coddled out of his sleep after only a few pages.

»

Israeli President Shimon Peres discusses Syria and Iran
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Lally Weymouth - (Interview) June 15, 2012 - 12:00am

President Obama presented the Medal of Freedom to Israeli President Shimon Peres at a dinner at the White House on Wednesday. The last surviving founder of the state of Israel, Peres went on to serve as prime minister and leader of the Labor Party, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his role in the Oslo Accords, the first Israeli agreement with the Palestinians. The morning after the White House dinner, Peres sat down with The Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth at Blair House to discuss Syria, Iran and U.S. presidents from Kennedy to Obama. Excerpts:

»

MK Anastassia Michaeli: Most gay people commit suicide at 40
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Ilan Lior, Jonathan Lis - June 15, 2012 - 12:00am

MK Anastassia Michaeli (Yisrael Beiteinu ) has angered gay groups and MKs alike by saying "most gay people commit suicide at 40." On Wednesday, speaking at a meeting of the Knesset Committee for the Advancement of Women, Michaeli accused Channel 10 of encouraging people to become homosexual.

»

Ex-Israeli soldier seeks Palestinian citizenship
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Dalia Nammari - June 14, 2012 - 12:00am

In an odd twist to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian saga, a former Israeli soldier has embarked on a new fight: He wants to renounce his Israeli citizenship and move to a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank. Andre Pshenichnikov, a 23-year-old Jewish immigrant from Tajikistan, was recently detained by Israeli police for residing illegally in the Deheishe Refugee Camp near Bethlehem. There he told police that he wants to break all ties with Israel, give up his Israeli citizenship and obtain a Palestinian one instead.

»

The affable face of evil
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) June 14, 2012 - 12:00am

Israeli evil wears many faces these days. There are the rude, the crude and the thuggish, who still manage to generate some heat: When MK Miri Regev goes off on one of her jingoist, gutter-talk rampages - "the 'infiltrators' are a cancer" - some people are still shocked. The same goes for her partner in base incitement, MK Danny Danon, known for spouting his own swinish pearls of wisdom, or Interior Minister Eli Yishai, no piker when it comes to bandying about inflammatory language about crime or about spreading disease.

»

IDF chief of staff-turned-vice premier: 'We are not bluffing'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Ari Shavit - (Interview) June 14, 2012 - 12:00am

Exactly seven years ago, I interviewed the chief of staff. On the eve of his retirement from the Israel Defense Forces, Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon spoke with an expressionless face against the Gaza disengagement, against a Palestinian state and against giving terrorism a “tailwind.” He predicted that Hamas would seize control of the Gaza Strip and that rockets would rain down on Israeli cities.

»

The warnings we should be hearing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a world-renowned expert on terror, needs experts to understand that the burning of a major mosque by Jews will spark a larger conflagration? As Haaretz reported on Sunday, prominent Mideast experts met with the prime minister to administer this warning, along with a warning that building 850 new housing units in the West Bank, as a "patriotic" response to the evacuation of Beit El's Ulpana neighborhood, will indirectly lead to the outbreak of a third intifada.

»

My Way or the Highway
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Kathleen Peratis - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am

If you say that the peace process, like the Wicked Witch, is not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead, no one will argue with you. Israel and the Palestinian Authority have not had a real negotiating session since September 2010, when so-called “talks” collapsed following a so-called settlement “freeze.” The last sign of life in the peace process was even earlier, in September 2008, when Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas came this close to a deal.

»

National-religious messianism is endangering Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Carlo Strenger - (Opinion) June 13, 2012 - 12:00am

Every month I drive to Bar-Ilan University to tape four or five discussions with national-Religious Rabbi Uri Sherki that are posted under the title "The Rabbi and the Professor" (unfortunately there are no English subtitles so far). I do this because I believe that there is desperate need for dialogue between Israel’s liberals and the national-religious. We have come to the point where we live in universes so different that it is becoming questionable how these groups can ever cooperate fruitfully for a common future.

»


American Task Force on Palestine - 1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 725, Washington DC 20006 - Telephone: 202-262-0017