U.S.-Israel Relations | The American Task Force on Palestine

The Second-Term Illusion
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy
by Aaron David Miller - (Opinion) April 11, 2012 - 12:00am

It's 2013. Barack Obama has just been re-elected, the Democrats have retained their majority in the Senate. And the American president, freed from political constraints in a second term, decides to take on an issue that stymied him so badly in his first. "Israeli-Palestinian peace is critically important to our national interests," Obama tells his new secretary of state (Kerry, Rice, Donilon -- take your pick). "If we don't move now, the two-state solution is dead." "It means taking on Benjamin Netanyahu," the secretary responds.

Foundation: Court delays verdict in Rachel Corrie case
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
April 10, 2012 - 12:00am

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- An Israeli court has postponed delivering a verdict in a civil case brought by the family of US activist Rachel Corrie, killed by an Israeli bulldozer during a demonstration in Gaza, the Rachel Corrie Foundation said Monday. At the last hearing in July, Judge Oded Gershon said he would deliver a verdict in April 2012. The verdict has been postponed due to delays in the filing of closing arguments, the foundation said in a statement. A new verdict date has not been set, the foundation added.

For fear of a political turnaround, Israel's government is destroying democracy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Sefi Rachlevsky - (Opinion) April 10, 2012 - 12:00am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is working to stamp out judicial review in order to perpetuate his governing coalition. Unlike most people on the center-left, the right-wing coalition knows that the most significant political differences are not that those that divide individual parties but those that divide the two major blocs: the right wing and the non-right.

Chinese Divided Over Middle East
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Robert O. Freedman - (Opinion) April 9, 2012 - 12:00am

In recent years, China’s foreign policy has turned more assertive than it has been in decades. When it comes to the Middle East, it has expressed this aggressiveness mostly through the veto power it wields in the United Nations Security Council, protecting Iran, for example, from tough sanctions over its nuclear program. With regard to the Syrian uprising, the Chinese, along with the Russians, have prevented the international body from sanctioning the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for its bloody repression of its own population.

Have Netanyahu and Obama agreed on the outcome of negotiations with Iran?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Anshel Pfeffer - (Opinion) April 8, 2012 - 12:00am

In two of his Pesach interviews, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlined in unprecedented detail the diplomatic outcome with Iran that Israel could live with. Maariv's interviewers asked him specifically what would satisfy him in next week's P5+1 talks with the Iranians to which he answered –

The fallacy of the 'pinkwashing' argument
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by James Kirchick - (Opinion) April 6, 2012 - 12:00am

On March 16, a group of gay Israeli teenagers was set to meet with the Seattle LGBT Commission, a body representing the interests of the gay community before the city government. The students were touring the United States under the auspices of the Alliance of Israeli LGBT Educational Organizations, a network of groups that support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. The purpose of the visit was to exchange ideas about best practices for combating homophobia, share personal experiences and, like any cultural exchange, generally learn from one other.

The important message of Peter Beinart
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Don Futterman - (Opinion) April 6, 2012 - 12:00am

Peter Beinart has been pilloried because of his call in a recent New York Times op-ed and in his newly published book, "The Crisis of Zionism," for a Zionist boycott of West Bank settlements. Beinart, former editor of the New Republic and founder of the new online forum "Open Zion," is tackling the concealed heart of our government's strategy: its campaign to erase any distinction between the occupied territories and Israel. Beinart has staked out a brave position, particularly in today's Zionist landscape.

U.N. Pushes West Bank Settlement 'Probe'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Guttman - (Analysis) April 5, 2012 - 12:00am

Washington — A United Nations group’s decision to probe settlement activity on the West Bank has raised the specter of a new feud between Israel and the world body — and created a fresh headache for the White House. Israel quickly denounced the Human Rights Council’s resolution, which calls for a fact-finding commission to investigate the “implications” of the settlements for Palestinians. The Jewish state also severed all ties with the council.

Norman Finkelstein bids farewell to Israel bashing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Natasha Mozgovaya - (Interview) April 5, 2012 - 12:00am

In June, Norman Finkelstein will mark 30 years of criticizing Israel. He remembers the exact day - the beginning of the Lebanon war, which ended his indifference to the Middle East's troubles. He'll have a new book coming out - "Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an End" - that focuses on Jewish public figures who represent, in his view, the narrative of beautiful Israel that's coming to an end. He is sure to make a lot of people mad again.

The infernal U.S.-Iran-Israel triangle
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) April 4, 2012 - 12:00am

Why does most of the world continue to lose respect for the United States and its conduct of foreign policy? Two developments in the past week shed some light on this, and – not surprisingly – they both relate to Washington’s relations with Iran and Israel, an arena in which American rationality, fairness, consistency and integrity go out the window, and hysteria takes over the controls.

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