Religious Extremism | The American Task Force on Palestine

Despicable Jewish revenge
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Elyakim Haetzni - October 25, 2010 - 12:00am

What at first appeared to be individual mischievous acts, and later became methodical “hooliganism,” is increasingly taking the shape of a threatening phenomenon: The desecration of an Arab cemetery and the torching of mosques, schools, fields and vehicles. The perpetrators of these crimes refer to them as “price tag,” an infuriating term in terms of both morality and logic.

Gaza hardliners launch arson attack on family leisure park
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - October 24, 2010 - 12:00am

Crazy Water Park had already been closed down for two weeks by the Hamas government, over an "unlicensed water whirl", when 40 armed arsonists struck in the middle of the night last month. They set fire to the resort's two main buildings and a tented mosque, causing more than $300,000 (£191,000) worth of damage and leading the owners to wonder whether it was a doomed project.

'If Rabin were alive, we would have peace'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Yitzhak Benhorin - October 22, 2010 - 12:00am

Aaron David Miller, who served as an advisor on Mideast peace to six US secretaries of state in the 1990s, worked extensively with slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Now, on the 15th anniversary of his assassination, Miller says he believes Rabin could have changed history if he had been allowed to live.

Settlers torch, vandalize Nablus school
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
October 21, 2010 - 12:00am

A group of Israeli settlers broke into an all girls' school in the Nablus districton Wednesday, setting fire to its storehouse containing furniture and unused sports equipment, the headmistress said. Maysoon Sawalha said the cleaning woman at the school in As-Sawiya village arrived to find the lock on the main door broken as well as that of the storehouse, and all its contents were torched. The fire did not spread to the rest of school because the water main is located in the storehouse, she said, adding that "otherwise the whole school would have been set on fire."

Lieberman is Kahane. And even the right senses it
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Bradley Burston - October 21, 2010 - 12:00am

Is anyone on the mainstream Jewish right – anyone at all – willing to speak in defense of Avigdor Lieberman, the bully in the china shop of Israel's relationship with its Arab minority? In particular, is anyone on the mainstream right prepared to step up and support his fascism bandwagon's snorting, noxious draft horse – the loyalty oath initiative? Not the Zionist Organization of America. Normally a hair-trigger media machine, the hard-right ZOA has been uncharacteristically silent on Lieberman's showcase bill.

Rights of Return and Recognition Cannot Be Swapped
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Leonard Fein - October 20, 2010 - 12:00am

In a recent New York Times essay, published Oct. 14, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael B. Oren, argues forcefully on behalf of the call by Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. “Affirmation of Israel’s Jewishness,” he writes, “is the very foundation of peace, its DNA.”

West of the 'Auschwitz borders'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) October 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Not long ago, during a meeting with foreign reporters, Avigdor Lieberman quoted a statement attributed to Abba Eban describing the 1967 borders as "Auschwitz borders." Immediately afterward, the foreign minister presented the "plan" to move territories west of those "Auschwitz borders" so they would be under the jurisdiction of a foreign element (namely, the Palestinians ) which, he claimed, seeks to throw the Jews into the sea. In order to be rid of the Arab population in Israel in return for annexing the "settlement blocs," Lieberman proposes contracting Israel's narrow waist even further.

Sephardi leader Yosef: Non-Jews exist to serve Jews
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
October 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli Sephardic leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in his weekly Saturday night sermon said that non-Jews exist to serve Jews. “Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world; only to serve the People of Israel,” he said during a public discussion of what kind of work non-Jews are allowed to perform on Shabbat. "Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat," he said to some laughter.

Time to stick it again to the Arabs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) October 15, 2010 - 12:00am

Underneath everything is hatred - hatred and contempt for Arabs. The ideology of the right has been dead for some time, nothing of its former glory remains; primeval emotions are now its true driving force. This is what is behind the right wing's nationalist laws and its so-called "peace." Lurking beneath all the unpretty words are not just political considerations, but a lack of any systematic ideas - only dark and dangerous instincts.

An oath for the few excludes the many in an ethnocracy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Jonathan Cook - October 15, 2010 - 12:00am

In all likelihood, I will be one of the very first non-Jews expected to swear loyalty to Israel as an ideology rather than as a state. Until now, naturalising residents, like the country's soldiers, pledged an oath to Israel and its laws. That is the situation in most countries. But soon, if the Israeli parliament passes a bill being advanced by the government, aspiring citizens will instead be required to uphold the Zionist majority's presumption that Israel is a "Jewish and democratic state".

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