Obama Betrayed Ideals on Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Peter Beinart - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

Bibi was coming again, and the White House was determined: this visit would not play out like the last one. On Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's previous trip to Washington, Obama had proposed that Israel and the Palestinians negotiate a peace deal based on the armistice lines drawn after Israel’s birth. Netanyahu reacted badly, lecturing the president publicly that “we can’t go back to those indefensible lines.”

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Please Shut Up
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Gershom Gorenberg - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

Rhetorically filling the fuel tanks of warplanes is all the rage. Benjamin Netanyahu did it at the AIPAC parley last week, dismissing diplomacy, sanctions and deterrence for dealing with Iran, and equating sorties over Qom with bombing Auschwitz. Rick Santorum used that venue to promise to "tear down" Iranian nuclear facilities. Mitt Romney was slightly more restrained, but his intent was the same: Bomb, baby, bomb. When Barack Obama tried to shush "loose talk of war," he got as much traction as a vicar giving a sermon during a soccer riot.

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Did Florida’s Legislature endorse a one-state solution and Israeli citizenship for Palestinians?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ben Harris - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

NEW YORK (JTA) -- The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a hotly debated issue -- but not in the Florida Legislature. Both houses of the state's Legislature voted unanimously in February to stake out a bold position on the issue -- but it’s not entirely clear what, exactly, Florida lawmakers were trying to say.

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Reality Check: A true friend
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Jeff Barak - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

At the risk of sounding like a teenage magazine agony aunt, here’s my definition of a true friend: A true friend is someone who will always look out for you, will protect your best interests and, when the situation demands it, tell you straight to your face a truth you might not particularly want to hear. In other words, a true friend will act exactly the way US President Barack Obama has acted toward Israel throughout his entire presidency.

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Netanyahu's flawed arguments for war
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Adel Safty - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

The Iranian crisis has given rise to another duel between US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. The public platform for the confrontation of the two men was provided by the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) policy conference which the two men addressed separately last week. They duelled in the past over how to achieve peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the Aipac policy conference, they publicly duelled about waging another war in the Middle East.

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Israeli lawmakers nix U.S. conference over visa rejection
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- A delegation of Israeli lawmakers will not attend a Washington conference because the United States has barred entry to one member because he belonged to a banned terrorist group. Knesset member Michael Ben Ari of the right-wing National Union party had been affiliated with Kach, the anti-Arab group founded in the 1970s by the late Meir Kahane. Kach is banned in the United States, the European Union and Canada, and outlawed in Israel.

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Pro-Israel Lawmakers Promote One State
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Josh Nathan-Kazis - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

A resolution calling for a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been adopted in two state legislatures and is headed for more. Usually, such a call would be interpreted as a pro-Palestinian move that many fear could obliterate Israel as a Jewish state. But not in these cases. Instead, these resolutions are protests against U.S. efforts to implement a two-state solution, the endorsed policy of both the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

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On Iran, a Win-Win
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
(Editorial) March 9, 2012 - 1:00am

The conventional wisdom is that the latest meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even if more cordial and productive than their eight prior exchanges, highlighted the stark differences between the two leaders as their nations face the threat of a nuclear Iran. And this gulf, so some urge us to believe, presents a serious schism for Americans who care about Israel’s security and this most special of special bilateral relationships. Permit us to offer another perspective.

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Should Israel Accept a Nuclear Ban?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
(Opinion) March 8, 2012 - 1:00am

The strained relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu during the last few days over Israel’s threats of unilateral action against Iran has focused the world’s attention on the sensitive issue of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Would this mess be avoided, and would Israel be safer, if Netanyahu agreed to a regional nonproliferation treaty as will be discussed at a conference in Finland later this year? Or would giving up nuclear weapons be suicidal for Israel? Why Would Jerusalem Budge? By Mya Guarnieri, blogger, +927

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Obama vs. Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Charles Krauthammer - (Opinion) March 8, 2012 - 1:00am

It’s Lucy and the football, Iran-style. After ostensibly tough talk about preventing Iran from going nuclear, the Obama administration acquiesced this week to yet another round of talks with the mullahs. This, 14 months after the last group-of-six negotiations collapsed in Istanbul because of blatant Iranian stalling and unseriousness. Nonetheless, the new negotiations will be both without precondition and preceded by yet more talks to decide such trivialities as venue.

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