Goldstone report: Israel's failings
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by George Bisharat - September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

Will Israel's decades-long impunity from international law finally come to an end? That is the question facing the international community in the aftermath of the just-released Goldstone report.

»

Goldstone findings will put Netanyahu on defensive at UN
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Natasha Mozgovaya - September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reminisced how, at the start of his tenure as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations in 1984, he met the Lubavitcher rebbe who told him that "you are going to the house of darkness but you must remember that even in the greatest darkness, if you light a small candle, it will shed its light to great distances."

»

UK minister to Ynet: We do not support boycotts against Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Yael Levy - September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

"The UK does not support boycotts against Israel as they are unhelpful and polarize the debate," British Secretary of State for Business Peter Mandelson told Ynet Thursday evening in response to a decision by British labor unions to support a ban on importing Israeli goods that are produced in "illegal settlements." The boycott, approved at the annual conference of the Trades Union Congress, also calls for an end to arms trading with Israel and disinvestment from some companies. It was reportedly initiated in response to Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

»

'PM agrees to 9-month W. Bank freeze'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Herb Keinon - September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has agreed to a West Bank settlement freeze of nine months, and not the previously agreed six, Army Radio quoted Jerusalem sources as saying Friday. The reported deal came in a meeting with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, during which the possibility was also raised of Israel making additional moves to ease Palestinians' lives in order to try and convince Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to meet Netanyahu and resume the peace process.

»

Israel must now heal itself
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Daniel Levy - (Opinion) September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

The report of the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict is outrageous, a disgrace. The mission's head, Richard Goldstone, was the chair of the Friends of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, chair of the World ORT education organisation with more than 150 schools in Israel and a self-declared friend of Israel whose daughter made aliyah – Zionist emigration to Israel – and she told Israeli army radio this week, "Israel is more important to me than anything."

»

Iran and Israel are benefitting from a weakening Obama
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Raghida Dergham - (Blog) September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

Presidents and Prime Ministers are flocking to the United Nations this week, some of them full of expectations, some burdened with depression and others less enthusiastic about meeting US President Barack Obama, after his international flame has waned as a result of internal battles that were waged against him or that he provoked, weighing him down.

»

U.S. Rejects U.N. Proposal to Compel War Crimes Probes of Gaza Conflict
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Colum Lynch - September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, rejected a U.N. proposal to compel Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip, to conduct credible investigations into war crimes during last winter's war in Gaza or face possible prosecution by an international prosecutor.

»

Goldstone report unfair to Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Jeremy Sharon - September 18, 2009 - 12:00am

U.S. Army Gen. George S. Patton once wrote that "battle is an orgy of disorder." This statement rings especially true now as Western nations continue to fight against enemies whose primary tactic is to sow as much confusion and disorder on the battlefield as possible.

»

A false equivalency of false equivalencies?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ibishblog
by Hussein Ibish - (Blog) September 17, 2009 - 12:00am

I get a lot of interesting responses to the postings on the Ibishblog, but those regarding my last posting on the UN Goldstone commission of inquiry into the Gaza war were particularly revealing. Both Arab and Jewish partisans tend to become enraged by any suggestion of equivalency between Israel and any group of Palestinians, particularly when it comes to conflict, warfare and armed struggle. Indeed, both the Israeli government and Hamas condemned the Goldstone report for the sin of "false equivalency," among other things.

»

Palestinian-Led Movement To Boycott Israel Is Gaining Support
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Gal Beckerman - September 17, 2009 - 12:00am

Uzbekistan-born diamond mogul Lev Leviev announced late in August that his company, Africa-Israel, was drowning in debt of more than $5.5 billion that it could not repay. Over the next two days, shares in the company’s stock plummeted by more than one-third. It was relentless bad news for one of the world’s richest men. His holding and investment company had lost $1.4 billion since 2008, mostly due to failed real estate investments in the United States. Watching Leviev’s precipitous downfall from the sidelines were pro-Palestinian activists. And they were cheering.

»


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