A sorry state of affairs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Hussein Shobokshi - (Opinion) December 15, 2011 - 1:00am


The race to find US Republican Party presidential nominee has recently turned into a cheap circus, full of farce and ridicule. The candidates are bending over backwards to please the influential Christian neo-conservative trend, personal firearms manufacturers, anti-abortion groups, and of course the supporters of the state of Israel in all their forms, whether Jewish pressure lobbies or Zionist-Christian extremist blocs.


Newt Gingrich may be able to occupy Palestine, but Israel can't
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Bradley Burston - (Opinion) December 14, 2011 - 1:00am


Speaker Gingrich, if you're serious about becoming president, it's time that you got to know us a bit better. Let's start with the Occupation, our 44-year-long experiment in re-inventing the Palestinian people. This is what you need to know before you bet your political farm on it: We don't have it in us. We can't pull it off.


If Obama goes, so will peace prospects
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Linda S. Heard - (Opinion) December 13, 2011 - 1:00am


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ultra-nationalistic sidekicks must be praying for Barack Obama’s departure next January. It’s not that the US president has exactly been tightening the screws on the intransigent Israeli leader to return to the table, although unfettered by a reliance on the Jewish and Christian Zionist vote he would probably have taken a much more forceful line.


The Republicans
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
(Editorial) December 13, 2011 - 1:00am


Less than a month before the Iowa caucuses, the first step in the US presidential nomination process, Republican presidential hopefuls seem to be engaged in an attempt to outdo one another in demonstrations of support for Israel. Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives who has pulled ahead of Mitt Romney in recent polls, has been the most outspoken. During a Republican debate held in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday night, Gingrich defended comments he made last week to the Jewish Channel referring to the Palestinians as an “invented people.”


‘The invented people’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Hassan Barari - (Opinion) December 13, 2011 - 1:00am


The statement by Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich that Palestinians are an “invented” people is nothing but a cheap stunt to get votes. Gingrich also assailed the righteousness of the Palestinians struggle for statehood when he referred to them as “terrorists”. If Newt Gingrich becomes the next president of the United States, we have every reason not to be optimistic. It is obvious that he is influenced not only by his quest for Jewish vote but also by ignorance.


David Remnick to Haaretz: Gingrich statement on 'invented' Palestinians is 'alarming'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Chemi Shalev - (Interview) December 13, 2011 - 1:00am


Republican candidate Newt Gingrich’s characterization of the Palestinians as an “invented” people is an “alarming attempt to diminish the Palestinian people and to diminish Palestinian history,” according to David Remnick, the Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of the prestigious New Yorker magazine.


Gingrich calls Palestinians an ‘invented’ people
Media Mention of Ghaith al-Omari In The Washington Post - December 12, 2011 - 1:00am

Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich said in a cable TV interview that Palestinians are an “invented” people with no apparent right to their own state, a rejection of a decade of bipartisan U.S. foreign policy. In the interview, which was taped Wednesday in Washington and will be broadcast Monday on The Jewish Channel, Gingrich spoke about his mistrust of Palestinian leaders, his admiration for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his view that the Obama administration is “favoring the terrorists” with its foreign policy.


The GOP on the Palestinians as an "invented people"
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from CNN
by James Lindsay - (Opinion) December 12, 2011 - 1:00am


Apparently 7.6 million people like me had nothing better to do Saturday night than watch the twelfth GOP presidential debate. That’s the biggest audience by far to watch the Republicans to spar over who should lead the party against Barack Obama.


Palestinians Will Invent a State Next
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bloomberg
by Michael Kinsley - (Blog) December 12, 2011 - 1:00am


Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- In November 1947, shortly after the United Nations voted for partition of the Holy Land into separate Arab and Jewish states, Chaim Weizmann was cited by the New York Times as saying that “the most important work now was to build Palestine.” What? To build Palestine? Yes, in 1947 the word “Palestinian” --if it meant anything at all -- referred to Jews living in Palestine. The Palestine Post (now the Jerusalem Post) was the Jewish English-language newspaper.


Gingrich: Palestinians 'invented,' promises Netanyahu-style foreign policy
Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In Politico - December 12, 2011 - 1:00am

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich dismissed the Palestinian bid for statehood as the effort of an "invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community." Gingrich also said the Palestinian Authority, which has typically represented the moderate wing of Palestinian leadership and formally accepts Israel's right to exist, is motivated by "an enormous desire to destroy Israel."



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