Arrests greet Palestinian freedom riders ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Salon.com by Khaled Diab - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am We headed for Road 60, one of the few main arteries in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which is open both to Israeli and Palestinian travelers. » Read more

Worldview: Israeli-Palestinian effort a victim of neglect ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Philly.com by Trudy Rubin - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am Traveling in Israel and the West Bank, and talking to leaders on both sides, one thing soon becomes apparent: The Israeli-Palestinian peace process of the last two decades is dead. Israeli leaders don't believe in it, Palestinian leaders have given up on it, and the White House has abandoned it. An end to talks on a two-state solution means a slide toward a "one-state solution" in which Palestinians outnumber Jews inside Israel's borders. This ensures perpetual violence. » Read more

Pro-Palestinian activists push cause within Occupy Wall Street movement ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) by Dan Klein - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am As the Occupy Wall Street protests continue to spread across America, an internal struggle is percolating over how the movement relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Pro-Palestinian activists are trying to insert the issue into the protests and are co-opting the Occupy Wall Street movement’s language to attack Israel. But some left-wing Jewish activists warn that these efforts will give ammunition to the movement’s critics and make it harder to build a big tent in support of Occupy Wall Street’s main economic agenda. » Read more

Is the Mideast peace mission impossible? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Douglas Bloomfield - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am The headline in The Jerusalem Post read, “Israel upset by PA’s refusal to renew talks.” Count me among the skeptics. I’m not convinced the Netanyahu government is at all disappointed that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas isn’t ready to return to the peace table. » Read more

No religious conflict in Hebron ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Musa Abu Hashhash - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am Palestinian history is made up of different layers and it is wrong and unfair to dig up one layer and ignore the others. This view was voiced by Dr. Albert Algazarian from Bir Zeit University, who wanted to prove the futility of arguing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in historical terms. I would argue that it is equally futile –and in fact dangerous – to turn it into a religious conflict. » Read more

Israel would be a backward country without the left-wing ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Ari Shavit - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to his senses at the last minute. He remembered that he's a Jabotinsky-ist and a democrat, so he blocked the bill that would have subordinated the judicial authority to the elected authority. But the bill that is designed to interfere harshly in choosing the Supreme Court president was passed. The bill that is designed to harm the funding of human rights organizations was almost passed. Channel 10 is still being pursued. » Read more

Netanyahu is now the last hope for Israeli democracy ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am Benjamin Netanyahu is a democrat, though of course there are people who are more democratic than he. He is imbued, from his youth, with a dangerous ambition to destroy Israel's "old elites," but he doesn't claim to want to destroy its democracy. Let's give him credit for that. Likud's prime ministers before him knew how to inflame passions - Menachem Begin in the street, and Ariel Sharon in the party central committee - but somehow they also knew how to preserve the democratic framework. » Read more

US and Israel haven't learned their history lessons. Palestinians and Abbas have. ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor by Michael Cohen - (Opinion) November 17, 2011 - 1:00am Edmund Burke famously said, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” The Arab-Israeli conflict, steeped in history, is a case in point. A major piece of US Middle East policy presents a clear example of history being forgotten, while Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s recent statehood bid at the United Nations serves as an example of history being remembered. » Read more

Israel’s Secret Iran Attack Plan: Electronic Warfare ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast by Eli Lake - November 16, 2011 - 1:00am For much of the last decade, as Iran methodically built its nuclear program, Israel has been assembling a multibillion-dollar array of high-tech weapons that would allow it to jam, blind, and deafen Tehran's defenses in the case of a pre-emptive aerial strike. » Read more

Palestinians Rethink Statehood Bid ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Nathan Guttman - November 17, 2011 - 1:00am Israelis warned of a “diplomatic tsunami,” Palestinians promised a game changer that would reshape Middle East peacemaking, and the White House and Congress geared up for an all-out battle inside and beyond the United Nations. But on November 11, the Palestinians’ initiative to gain statehood recognition from the U.N. Security Council ended finally not with a bang, but with a whimper. » Read more