International Community | The American Task Force on Palestine

Israel’s hostile neighborhood
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Roger Cohen - (Opinion) September 12, 2011 - 12:00am

Back in 1953, an Egyptian army officer was asked by the magazine Al-Musawwar what he would write to Hitler if he were still alive. “My Dear Hitler,” he began gushingly, “I admire you from the bottom of my heart.” He proceeded to extol the German dictator for, among other things, creating dissension between “the old man Churchill and his allies, the sons of Satan.” If the mass murder of Jews bothered the officer in the least, he did not mention it. Years later, as the president of Egypt, he was himself murdered for making peace with the Jewish state. His name, of course, was Anwar Sadat.

The politics of symbolic forms
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Masry Al-Youm
by Amr el-Zant - (Opinion) September 12, 2011 - 12:00am

Where does Israel live in the Egyptian public imagination? Some unfortunate instances are usefully recalled: Jewish settlement in Palestine; a few wars, and the loss of Palestine; bloody incursions into Lebanon and Gaza; the destruction of Arab cities, including the Suez Canal towns. Then there is the saga of intelligence struggles against the Israeli espionage machine, folklore that captured many an Egyptian mind as it emerged from screens big and small.

Hamas’s Silence and Hezbollah’s Voice
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Jameel Theyabi - (Opinion) September 12, 2011 - 12:00am

Many do not trust the movements of political Islam that raise flashy slogans, frighten people with threats of grief and destruction, announce their resistance and rejectionism but at the same time remain silent vis-à-vis the actions of the tyrants and the rifles of the dictators that are pointed toward the heads of the “peaceful” demonstrators. I wanted to go over Hamas’s position in comparison with Hezbollah’s stand. Hamas, its Politburo Chief Khaled Meshaal, and Haniyeh and Al-Zahhar from behind him are all utterly “silent” toward the developments in Syria!

Encountering Peace: The view from Cairo
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gershon Baskin - (Opinion) September 12, 2011 - 12:00am

Since Friday I have been in Cairo. This great city is not unfamiliar to me – I’ve been here more than 20 times, although my last visit was five years ago. I came to Cairo to attend a small meeting of MECA – the Middle East Citizens Assembly. This small but important organization was founded by Walid Salem, a Palestinian peace and democracy activist from east Jerusalem who decided that for real democracy to take root in the Arab world, citizens needed to take responsibility, stop acting like subjects and become active participants.

A Secular State with a…“Football” Frame of Reference
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Mohammad Salah - (Opinion) September 12, 2011 - 12:00am

It is not difficult to explain what happened with the Israeli embassy in Cairo. Indeed, despite it being unanimously recognized as unlawful action contrary to Egyptian and international law, as well as to all conventions, and despite the fact that all Egyptian political forces have rejected the attack on the embassy, as well as of course the confrontations with security personnel that followed, we must understand that there is in Egypt a major social issue called “vengeance”, for which the search to find a solution never stops, and which is well entrenched especially in Upper Egypt.

Editorial: Keep the peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) September 11, 2011 - 12:00am

Shortly after thousands of incensed demonstrators forced their way into the Israeli Embassy in Cairo over the weekend, both Egypt and Israel issued statements reaffirming their commitments to the 1979 peace treaty, the first to be signed between an Arab country and Israel.

Cairo shows Israel rallying extremism
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) September 11, 2011 - 12:00am

Petrol bombs and stones were met with tear gas and armoured cars on Friday night. Street riots have become familiar scenes in Cairo since January 25. This time it is Israel, not the old regime, that is the focus of the rage, but the threat to Egypt's stability is the same.

In Israel, Cairo attack deepens sense of siege
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Joel Greenberg - September 11, 2011 - 12:00am

After a week in which Israel’s diplomats were forced out of Turkey and Egypt, for years its regional allies, and facing a possible United Nations vote recognizing a Palestinian state, the country is experiencing a deepening sense of siege. Televised scenes of Egyptian protesters storming the Israeli Embassy in Cairo on Friday, and dramatic media accounts of the threat faced by six security men who were trapped for hours inside, summoned up for many Israelis nightmare scenarios of a lynch by an Arab mob.

Turn crisis into opportunity
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
(Editorial) September 9, 2011 - 12:00am

The Americans are making a last-ditch effort to convince Palestinians to halt their plan to ask the UN later this month to recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines. The US – as well as other Western countries such as Italy and Germany, not to mention Israel – would rightly like to see the Palestinians scrap their unilateral push for statehood and replace it with serious dialogue with Israel that leads to a negotiated peace agreement acceptable to both sides. Unfortunately, it appears highly unlikely that Washington’s efforts will succeed.

A Palestinian September
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Husam Itani - (Opinion) September 9, 2011 - 12:00am

One of the biggest victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks was the second Palestinian uprising.

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