Is the pro-Israel lobby panicking?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Rami Khouri - August 10, 2009 - 12:00am

Is the Israeli lobby in the United States in panic mode? The Obama administration hit the ground running when it took office in January, quickly appointing George Mitchell as a special envoy to Arab-Israeli peacemaking, and making it clear that President Barack Obama himself would devote time and energy to the goal of a comprehensive peace.

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Losing Patience with Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Atlantic
by Robert Kaplan - August 10, 2009 - 12:00am

Not since the days of Henry Kissinger’s Mid-East shuttle diplomacy in the 1970s has America’s foreign policy toward Israel been characterized by such an attitude of unsentimental realism. After eight years of fighting, the stalemate in Afghanistan and the loss of 4,000 American troops in Iraq – not to mention the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis – has rendered the search for stability, rather than democracy, paramount, and created a climate in which interests are to be valued far more than friends.

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Does Obama have a plan for peace—or a plan for a plan?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ron Kampeas - August 10, 2009 - 12:00am

Are the parties in the Middle East ready for a U.S. peace plan? Or just for a plan for a peace plan? Talk of a near-term U.S. peace plan was spurred last week when a State Department official said one would be in place "within weeks" -- a projection confirmed within a day by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. "I think it will be in a matter of weeks," the spokesman, P.J. Crowley, said in an Aug. 3 briefing when he was asked when George Mitchell, President Obama's envoy to the Middle East, would present a plan.

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Israeli envoy: Obama row causes strategic damage
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
August 7, 2009 - 12:00am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's attitude toward the Obama administration is causing Israel strategic damage, in the view of a senior Israeli diplomat in Boston, Channel 10 television reported yesterday. Consul General Nadav Tamir's reported comment is a rare internal rebuke, highlighting the growing tension between Washington and Jerusalem. Tamir is a highly regarded veteran diplomat whose opinions on foreign policy matters carry considerable weight. Such blunt, pointed criticism of a prime minister's policies by a professional diplomat is considered unusual.

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U.S. asks Israel for one-year settlement freeze
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - August 6, 2009 - 12:00am

American Middle East envoy George Mitchell has asked Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for a "deposit," an advance commitment of a one-year freeze on construction in West Bank settlements. Mitchell raised the idea in his talks with Netanyahu and Barak in Israel last week. He argued that the Arab states will not make gestures toward normalization with Israel without a guarantee of an end to building in the settlements. Mitchell said an Israeli agreement to temporarily freeze construction would facilitate concessions from the Arab states.

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J Street, ADL launch war of words over Obama Israel policy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Natasha Mozgovaya - August 6, 2009 - 12:00am

Nearly seven months after the inauguration of Barack Obama, feuding among major U.S. Jews organizations is taking place behind closed doors and could be reaching its worst point in recent memory. Left-wing U.S. Jewish organizations have been buoyed by the election of Obama, and according to some Jewish Democrats in Washington, tensions have been worsened by the lessening of right-wing Jews' access to senior White House officials, in contrast to the near-monopoly they had on access to Bush administration officials for the past eight years.

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Jewish Groups Say Obama’s Pick for Medal Has Anti-Israel Bias
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Mark Landler - August 6, 2009 - 12:00am

President Obama’s decision to bestow one of the nation’s highest honors on Mary Robinson, the first woman to serve as Ireland’s president, has touched off protests by Jewish groups and lawmakers, who claim she has shown a persistent anti-Israel bias in her work as a human rights advocate. Mr. Obama plans to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to Mrs. Robinson and 15 others at a ceremony next week at the White House.

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Obama and the three nos
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Aluf Benn - August 5, 2009 - 12:00am

President Barack Obama's first encounter with Middle Eastern realities ended in great disappointment. His effort to restart the peace process, which was supposed to offer revivifying hope to the peoples of the region after George W. Bush's diplomatic freeze and war on terror, hit a wall of stubbornness and rejectionism. Instead of Obama's suggestions being received with cries of joy, they were answered with three nos: Israel will not freeze the settlements, the Palestinians will not resume negotiations and the Arab states will not take any steps toward normalization with Israel.

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American and Israeli delusions of peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Douglas Bloomfield - (Opinion) August 5, 2009 - 12:00am

No wonder the State Department is known as the Fudge Factory. Not once but twice in three days, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood by smiling while getting verbal slaps in the face from two of our closest Arab allies. The Jordanian and Saudi foreign ministers publicly declared they have no intention of offering the administration more than gratuitous advice on resuscitating the Arab-Israeli peace process.

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From ‘Jew Boy’ To ‘Self-Hater’: U.S. Jewish Officials Hear From Israelis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Guttman - August 5, 2009 - 12:00am

A report stating that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had denounced two top aides to President Obama as “self-hating Jews” brought back less-than-fond memories to veteran Jewish officials from previous administrations — even as Netanyahu belatedly denied the latest alleged instance of this long tradition of targeting Jewish administration officials. For Martin Indyk, former ambassador to Israel, it was the image of the late Cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi calling him “Yehudon” — translated loosely to “Jew boy” — that came to mind.

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