NEWS: Palestinian leaders say they will skip forming an interim unity government and go directly to elections. Israel may be considering releasing withheld Palestinian tax revenue, as PM Fayyad says the sanctions are taking their toll. Deputy FM Ayalon says the collapse of the PA “would not be the end of the world” for Israel. Supporters of Israel intensify outreach efforts aimed at the African-American community. A majority of Palestinians once again say they do not support armed struggle against the Israeli occupation. PM Netanyahu is strongly critical of the pro-democracy Arab uprisings. Christian groups are quarreling over who gets to repair the roof of the Church of the Nativity. Palestinian children create a human sculpture for peace. Israel delays controversial demolition plans for a bridge at a holy site. COMMENTARY: Akiva Eldar says Netanyahu has personally "won," but Israel has lost, many diplomatic battles. Chemi Shalev says the kind of support Israel is getting from most Republican candidates isn't worth having. The Jordan Times says Palestinians should remain united against Israeli bullying. Uri Avnery says Israel is paying a historic price for the consistent policy of blocking Palestinian statehood. Amira Hass outlines what she thinks Palestinian national reconciliation should accomplish. Karl Vick says Hamas is moving closer to the international mainstream. Neil Steinberg interviews the Israeli consul general in Chicago. Dan Ephron reviews a new documentary about Israeli military tribunals in the occupied territories. Amir Oren says there are two legal processes set for January that could bring down the Israeli government. Gershom Gorenberg says “price tag” violence, extreme segregation and other occupation phenomena are coming home to Israel itself.

Israel’s Other Occupation
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Gershom Gorenberg - (Opinion) November 25, 2011 - 1:00am

“CLEARLY, there’s a war here, sometimes even worse than the one in Samaria,” the yeshiva student said. “It’s not a war with guns. It’s a war of light against darkness.” We were sitting in the mixed Jewish-Arab town of Acre in Israel. The war he described was another front in the struggle he knew from growing up in a settlement in the northern West Bank, or Samaria: the daily contest between Jews and Palestinians for control of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

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Netanyahu's day of reckoning is nearing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amir Oren - (Opinion) November 27, 2011 - 1:00am

Two separate legal processes in the area of public law that are finally nearing completion will rock Israel's political establishment in January, possibly even to the point of bringing down the government. The first is State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss versus Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the matter of the Carmel forest fire of last December. The second is Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein versus Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose indictment for money laundering, fraud, breach of trust and harassing a witness, among other charges, is a near certainty.

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When the Judge Is Your Enemy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Dan Ephron - (Opinion) November 28, 2011 - 1:00am

War has a way of testing a country’s commitment to civil liberties like nothing else. It’s easy to be high-minded when you’re Switzerland. But when terrorists are flying planes into your buildings, as the U.S. discovered after 9/11, the impulse to deny some suspects even the right to be brought before a judge, a core tenet of any fair legal system, can be powerful.

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Israel shares the Palestinian plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Chicago Sun Times
by Neil Steinberg - (Opinion) November 28, 2011 - 1:00am

One of the odder aspects of the endless Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that the side you would expect to be the more active and effective of the two participants — the Israeli government — seems frequently sunk into passivity. The Palestinians cook up creative public relations ploys like running the Israeli naval blockade or appealing to the United Nations to declare it a state, while Israeli leaders sit around, waiting to see what the Palestinians do next.

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Where reconciliation could fail or succeed
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Amira Hass - (Opinion) November 21, 2011 - 1:00am

My crystal ball shattered long ago, so I cannot predict whether or not a Palestinian reconciliation government will indeed come into being. All I can do is offer a few thoughts and questions, and emphasize that it is not my Israeli identity that is responsible for them but rather my left-wing identity.

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Where reconciliation could fail or succeed
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Amira Hass - (Opinion) November 21, 2011 - 1:00am

My crystal ball shattered long ago, so I cannot predict whether or not a Palestinian reconciliation government will indeed come into being. All I can do is offer a few thoughts and questions, and emphasize that it is not my Israeli identity that is responsible for them but rather my left-wing identity.

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In November, a day to remember
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Uri Avnery - (Opinion) November 28, 2011 - 1:00am

A day in November. A day to remember. On Nov. 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted, by 33 votes against 13 (with 10 abstentions), the Palestine Partition Plan. This event has become a subject of endless debates, misinterpretations and outright falsifications. It may be worthwhile to peel away the myths and see it as it was.

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Standing united
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
(Opinion) November 28, 2011 - 1:00am

Israel is once again using the tax axe against the Palestinians; it is threatening the Palestinian Authority to withhold tax revenues due to them if Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas goes ahead with his reconciliation efforts with Hamas leader Khaled Mishaal. The two Palestinian leaders succeeded in striking a reconciliation accord during their recent meeting in Cairo. This progress on the Palestinian front displeases Israel, prompting Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to warn the Palestinian Authority not to go ahead with the plan to form a unity government with Hamas.

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Republicans and Israel: Too much love can kill you
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Chemi Shalev - (Opinion) November 28, 2011 - 1:00am

In the first Gulf War in 1991 and once again in the war against Iraq in 2003, Israel was asked by the U.S. administration to maintain a “low profile," in order to avoid the perception that America was fighting with Israel, or on its behalf. Both George Bushes, senior and junior, considered it prudent to relegate Israel to the sidelines – even when it was under direct attack, as was the case in 1991 - in order to help establish international coalitions and to maintain public support for the war, especially in the Muslim world. In both cases, Israel complied.

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