International Community | The American Task Force on Palestine

We in Israel welcome the Arab spring
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Shimon Peres - (Opinion) April 1, 2011 - 12:00am

The Middle East has to make a historic choice: to join the new global age of democratic peace and liberal economy, or to stay clinging to its history of closed societies and autocracy. A great revolt has been initiated by young people and women, to gain freedom, bread and hope. Israel is watching with great expectation. These events are both unprecedented and unplanned.

'Digging his own grave'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) April 1, 2011 - 12:00am

The wind of change that has been blowing in the Arab world, which saw the celebrated downfall of two autocratic Arab regimes, in Tunisia and Egypt, is still blowing hard in other Arab countries, especially Libya where the days of its ruler, Muammar Qadhafi, are believed numbered.

Netanyahu digs his grave
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) March 31, 2011 - 12:00am

The Arab tsunami that has come in the wake of the Arab spring that saw the downfall of two autocratic regimes in Tunisia and Egypt is still blowing hard in other Arab countries, especially in Libya, where the days of its hallucinating ruler Muammar Gaddafi are believed to be numbered. What has been equally agonising has been the failure, if not refusal, of western governments to help correct this tragic Arab course. But then it can be argued that most western nations have benefited from this lackadaisical situation in various Arab states.

Colombia: We will not recognize Palestinian state
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gil Shefler - March 31, 2011 - 12:00am

After suffering a series of diplomatic defeats to the Palestinians in Latin America, Israel won a rare victory on Wednesday when Colombia announced that it would not unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón told a delegation of the World Jewish Congress in a meeting in the Colombian capital of Bogota that his government would not recognize Palestinian statehood as “a matter of principle.”

Israel Warns Against Recognition of Independent Palestine
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Mel Frykber - March 31, 2011 - 12:00am

The Israeli government has warned the U.N. Security Council and the EU that it will resort to unilateral countermeasures if the international community recognises Palestine as an independent state at the U.N. General Assembly session next September. The warning is in response to what the Israeli government perceives as attempts by critics, local and international, to "de-legitimise" the Jewish state.

Despite volatility in Arab lands, Jews there stay put
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gil Shefler - March 30, 2011 - 12:00am

Over the past several months a series of uprisings has shaken the Arab world, felling dictators and ushering in a period of great hope and fear for the future. But despite the growing political instability in the region, Jewish communities in Arab lands have so far chosen to stay. The remaining Jews in Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt – tiny remnants of once-much-larger communities decimated by decades of voluntary and involuntary emigration – have turned down repeated offers to leave by Jewish organizations and Israel concerned with their safety.

Israel fears the alternative if Syria's Assad falls
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - March 30, 2011 - 12:00am

As popular unrest threatens to topple another Arab neighbor, Israel finds itself again quietly rooting for the survival of an autocratic yet predictable regime, rather than face an untested new government in its place. Syrian President Bashar Assad's race to tamp down public unrest is stirring anxiety in Israel that is even higher than its hand-wringing over Egypt's recent regime change. Unlike Israel and Egypt, Israel and Syria have no peace agreement, and Syria, with a large arsenal of sophisticated weapons, is one of Israel's strongest enemies.

This ‘Arab Spring,’ Only Uncertainty Blooms
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) March 30, 2011 - 12:00am

Observers are increasingly using the term “Arab spring” to describe the tsunami of revolution, revolt, state collapse and armed intervention that is sweeping the Arab world. The term implies that a better reality, a rebirth, is about to burst forth from the Arab world. Yet it is not obvious or certain that we are actually on the cusp of a better reality.

Israel: Facebook Removes a Page Calling for Violence
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Jennifer Preston - March 29, 2011 - 12:00am

After complaints by Israeli officials and American Jewish groups, Facebook took down a page Tuesday by Palestinian supporters that called for violence against Jews and an uprising against Israel. The page, titled “Third Palestinian Intifada,” began this month as a call for peaceful protests in the occupied Palestinian territories, one of more than a dozen Facebook pages used recently to mobilize uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa. The unidentified advocates who managed the page initially removed comments that promoted violence, according to Facebook officials.

Why Palestinians Should Learn About the Holocaust
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Mohammed Dajani Daoudi, Robert Satloff - (Opinion) March 29, 2011 - 12:00am

Should Palestinian and other Arab schools teach their students about the Holocaust?

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