What exactly did Netanyahu promise Obama?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff - (Blog) July 21, 2010 - 12:00am

A talk given by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Andrew J. Shapiro at the Brookings Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington D.C. last weekend did not gain sufficient attention in Israel. Most of the Israeli newspapers focused on his argument that more American aid, which would fund the manufacture of missile defense systems, would help Israel make "tough" decisions in the peace negotiations with the Palestinians. (In other words – the financial assistance and defense systems would minimize the risk posed by rocket attacks thus facilitating future Israeli territorial withdrawals.)

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Netanyahu admits on video he deceived US to destroy Oslo accord
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Jonathan Cook - July 18, 2010 - 12:00am

The contents of a secretly recorded video threaten to gravely embarrass not only Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister but also the US administration of Barack Obama. The film was shot, apparently without Mr Netanyahu’s knowledge, nine years ago, when the government of Ariel Sharon had started reinvading the main cities of the West Bank to crush Palestinian resistance in the early stages of the second intifada. At the time Mr Netanyahu had taken a short break from politics but was soon to join Mr Sharon’s government as finance minister.

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Waiting for November
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) July 16, 2010 - 12:00am

The love fest held here for all to see, with Barack Obama escorting Benjamin Netanyahu on the front lawn of the White House and at a joint press conference, was a marked difference from the two leaders’ contentious, behind-closed-doors meeting here last April. But judging from the early assessments, it is not certain that their relationship will bear fruit in the near future.

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Support for Israel near record high, Gallup Poll shows
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
July 16, 2010 - 12:00am

Support for Israel among Americans is at a near record high, a new poll showed. According to the Gallup Poll, 63 percent of Americans say their sympathies in the Middle East conflict are with Israel, while 15 percent side with the Palestinians. The rest favor both sides, neither side or have no opinion. Support for Israel was higher only in 1991, shortly after Israel was hit with Scud missiles during the Gulf War, when it was at 64 percent.

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46% say Obama is pro-Palestinian
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gil Hoffman - July 16, 2010 - 12:00am

US President Barack Obama’s efforts to reach out to the people of Israel last week – when he hosted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for a positive meeting at the White House and gave his first interview as president to an Israeli television station – were not very successful, according to a Smith Research poll for The Jerusalem Post. When asked whether they saw Obama’s administration as more pro-Israel, more pro- Palestinian or neutral, just 10 percent of Israeli Jews said more pro-Israel, 46% said more pro-Palestinian, 34% said neutral and 10% did not express an opinion.

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The olive branch in the West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Bulletin
by Hugh Gusterson - (Opinion) July 15, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, was recently quoted as saying that relations between the U.S. and Israel were undergoing a "tectonic rift in which continents are drifting apart." If the quote is accurate, which Oren later disputed, it is surely an overstatement. Still, an interesting divergence is developing in the means by which the U.S. and Israeli militaries are dealing with Islamic militants in territories they are occupying.

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'Nuclear Iran less threat than chance of binational state'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Greer Fay Cashman - July 15, 2010 - 12:00am

“A nuclear Iran is not the end of Israel. A binational state is the end of Israel,” political commentator and former consul-general in New York Alon Pinkas told members of the Israel Britain and the Commonwealth Association on Wednesday. Speaking at the Sheraton Hotel in Tel Aviv prior to the IBCA general meeting, Pinkas initially addressed outgoing British Ambassador Tom Phillips, to whom he said that in an ambassador’s average three-to-four year in Israel there are two wars, two elections and one peace process.

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The unholy peace trinity
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Nahum Barnea - (Opinion) July 14, 2010 - 12:00am

Leslie Gelb, who held senior positions in the US Administration and was a New York Times editor, currently, serves as the president emeritus of the US Council on Foreign Relations. Over the weekend, he published a scathing op-ed against President Obama and his team on the Daily Beast website. “Whoever advised President Obama to flay Israel publicly until this week should be fired,” he wrote. “Only advisers with no experience in dealing with Israel could have believed that Israeli leaders like Prime Minister Netanyahu would bow to public attacks.”

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Netanyahu's Success
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Saad bin Tefla - (Opinion) July 14, 2010 - 12:00am

Day after day US President Barack Obama, who is still not a highly seasoned politician, discovers that talk in election campaigns is one thing but political reality is another, and that, as they say, "talk is cheap" during and prior to election campaigns, and even at Cairo University and earlier at the Turkish parliament. However, matching words with deeds is a completely different matter.

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Great atmospherics
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Yossi Alpher - (Opinion) July 14, 2010 - 12:00am

The Obama-Netanyahu meeting in Washington last week was an elegant exercise in short-term realpolitik. Very short-term. US President Barack Obama needs urgently to project an image of tranquility, friendship and cooperation in his relationship with Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu. This helps his administration ensure the support of a variety of pro-Israel sectors of American society as mid-term congressional elections approach. It also seeks to correct the impression that Obama has simply mismanaged his relations with Netanyahu and Israel and fumbled the peace process from the start.

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