America

Time stands still in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Richard Cohen - (Opinion) August 31, 2010 - 12:00am

Say what you will about the Arab world, it's hard to earn its gratitude. President Obama went to Egypt and not Israel. He demanded that Israel cease adding new settlements in the West Bank. He treated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with a chilling disdain. For all of that, though, Obama's approval rating in Arab countries has sunk. Unlike almost a fifth of Americans, the Arab world clearly knows Obama is no Muslim.

A jihad’s inspiration
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Boston Globe
by Philip Smucker - July 12, 2010 - 12:00am

AMID THE frosty peaks of the Hindu Kush, I imagined the echo of George W. Bush’s words, “Justice will be done!’’ rebounding through the boulders like a snow leopard on the prowl. Nearly nine years after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, it is worth remembering that killing or capturing Osama bin Laden was once front and center of the US government’s anti-terrorism policy.

Israel's rocky friendship with Barack Obama
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Jeremy Bowen - (Opinion) July 6, 2010 - 12:00am

Benjamin Netanyahu does not have a great history with the occupants of the Oval Office. He got off to a bad start with Bill Clinton during his first term as Israel's prime minister in the 1990s. After he lectured Mr Clinton about the Arab-Israeli conflict the president was not happy. "Who the heck does he think he is?" he expostulated. "Who's the hecking superpower here?" Only according to the witness, a diplomat called Aaron Miller, he did not say "heck". It is safe to say that Mr Netanyahu's relations with President Obama have been disastrous.

Israel’s Stealth F.M.: Barak, Not Lieberman, Tasked With Weighty Issues
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Guttman - June 30, 2010 - 12:00am

On June 8, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman made a trip to the United States. He met leaders of the Jewish community, attended the opening ceremony of a community center in New York, briefed Israeli diplomats and returned to Jerusalem without making a stop in Washington. During his two-day trip, Lieberman did not meet any American administration officials.

A Special Place in Hell / Tea Party Jews: Betraying U.S. and Israel at the same time
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Bradley Burston - (Blog) June 30, 2010 - 12:00am

Ever wonder what a future America might look like if the Tea Party took over? Try today's Israel. That distinctive brew of left-baiting, Obama-hating, poorly veiled racism, clergy-driven jingoism, clergy-fanned derision of the Supreme Court, the Luddite insertion of anti-government bile where an ideology should go, a majority which feels victimized and discriminated against and threatened by minorities of indeterminate legal status – it's all here. It just speaks Hebrew.

Rift between Israel and the United States: Flotilla incident didn't help
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Walter Rodgers - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am

It is difficult to recall a time when relations between a sitting US president and the Jewish state of Israel have been uglier. The embarrassing and deadly raid by not-so-crack Israeli commandos on Gaza-bound relief ships May 31 only further demonstrates how badly the American president is constrained because of his earlier jagged ties with the government of Israel and with angry, right-wing American Jews. The Obama administration was painfully aware of just how abysmal relations with Israel had become even before the confrontation at sea.

Washington Asks: What to Do About Israel?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Helene Cooper - June 7, 2010 - 12:00am

Some topics are so inflammatory that they are never discussed without first inserting a number of caveats. And so, when Anthony Cordesman, a foreign policy dignitary in this town’s think tank circuit, dropped an article on Wednesday headlined “Israel as a Strategic Liability,” he made sure to open with a plethora of qualifications.

Mideast Peace Tops List of Hopeless Causes: Aaron David Miller
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bloomberg
by Aaron David Miller - June 2, 2010 - 12:00am

Groucho Marx, one of America’s pre- eminent philosophers, once quipped, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes.” I thought of Groucho the other day, while ruminating about President Barack Obama and the crisis after Israeli commandos boarded a ship ostensibly carrying human-rights activists and aid supplies headed for Gaza in defiance of Israel’s blockade.

Resources on the American National Security Interest in Israeli-Palestinian Peace
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post
by Ziad Asali - May 20, 2010 - 12:00am

My colleagues and I founded the American Task Force on Palestine in 2003 with a clear, focused mission: to advocate that a negotiated end of conflict agreement that allows for two states, Israel and Palestine, to live side-by-side in peace and security is in the American national interest. Over the past seven years, we have been gratified by the development of the understanding that this is a vital national interest for our country into a clear policy focus for our government and a growing consensus within the foreign policy establishment.

The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Review Of Books
by Peter Beinart - May 17, 2010 - 12:00am

In 2003, several prominent Jewish philanthropists hired Republican pollster Frank Luntz to explain why American Jewish college students were not more vigorously rebutting campus criticism of Israel. In response, he unwittingly produced the most damning indictment of the organized American Jewish community that I have ever seen.

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