Amid violence, pen pals in Congress focus on Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from December 31, 1969 - 8:00pm It happens almost like clockwork: Something happens in the Middle East, and it reverberates across the Atlantic with new letters from the U.S. Congress. With so many relatively new members looking to establish their pro-Israel credentials, the reaction in Congress to the recent violence in Israel was particularly swift. » Read more

Amid violence, pen pals in Congress focus on Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from December 31, 1969 - 8:00pm It happens almost like clockwork: Something happens in the Middle East, and it reverberates across the Atlantic with new letters from the U.S. Congress. With so many relatively new members looking to establish their pro-Israel credentials, the reaction in Congress to the recent violence in Israel was particularly swift. » Read more

Israel lawmaker wonders if his Labor Party may deserve its fate ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times by Edmund Sanders - (Interview) March 28, 2011 - 12:00am He says the Israeli left is in disarray and its standard-bearer Labor Party has betrayed its values so much, it might be renamed the "Prostitution Party." It's a harsh analysis, and somewhat surprising given that it comes from lawmaker Daniel Ben-Simon, one of the party's leaders. In January, Ben-Simon was so frustrated that he announced plans to leave Labor. But he changed his mind after former Labor Party Chairman Ehud Barak quit instead to form his own party, just as other party leaders were threatening to oust Barak. » Read more

In Gaza, rocket attacks seen as a smokescreen ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Hugh Naylor - March 26, 2011 - 12:00am Yousef Mohammed, 61, is not ready to die by what he and many others in this besieged Palestinian territory cynically regard as little more than a ploy by Hamas. Militants here have recently been allowed to fire a flurry of rockets deep inside Israel, undermining more than two years of relative calm since the country's three-week military assault on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, killed as many 1,400 Palestinians. Thirteen Israelis died in the fighting that also obliterated much of Gaza's infrastructure. » Read more

In Obama’s push for Mideast peace, whose side is he on? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Jackson Diehl - (Opinion) March 27, 2011 - 12:00am So far what some are calling the Arab Spring has brought Israel the first terrorist bombing in Jerusalem in seven years and the first significant missile attacks from the Gaza Strip in two years. And that, for the government of Binyamin Netanyahu, is likely to be the easy part. The hard part will be managing Barack Obama. » Read more

Palestinians Hold Talks on Reconciliation ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Ethan Bronner - March 26, 2011 - 12:00am President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority met Saturday with officials of Hamas for the first time in a year in an effort to reconcile the two movements whose bitter rivalry has kept the West Bank and Gaza apart and blocked any real hope of Palestinian statehood. » Read more

Palestinians Hold Talks on Reconciliation ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Ethan Bronner - March 26, 2011 - 12:00am President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority met Saturday with officials of Hamas for the first time in a year in an effort to reconcile the two movements whose bitter rivalry has kept the West Bank and Gaza apart and blocked any real hope of Palestinian statehood. » Read more

The Shama family, stuck between the anvil of Hamas and the hammer of Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Hugh Naylor - March 27, 2011 - 12:00am It has now become a foregone conclusion for the Shama family. Every time a rocket or mortar is fired into Israel, the land at the back of their house in the Twam area of the Gaza strip will be attacked in retaliation. » Read more

Israel Rolls Out First Mobile Battery of Antirocket System ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Isabel Kershner - March 27, 2011 - 12:00am The Israeli military deployed the first mobile battery of a new antirocket missile defense system on Sunday on a dusty rise at the outskirts of this southern Israeli city after a week of heightened tensions between Israel and Gaza. Palestinian mourners carried the body of Saber Assalya, an Islamic Jihad militant, during his funeral in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday. Increased tensions between Israel and Gaza have led to fears of an all-out confrontation. » Read more

What Egypt Can Learn from Palestine ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Slate by Michael Weiss - (Opinion) March 25, 2011 - 12:00am A persistent theme of the recent Arab revolutions has been a fear of Islamists coming to power via democratic means. For Middle East analysts based in the West, all eyes are on Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and its likely fortunes in the parliamentary elections scheduled for June. Statements made by senior representatives of the Brotherhood about the impossibility of women or Coptic Christians holding the presidency, or how Iran is a model for human rights, should give democracy proponents pause, since they seem to confuse the concept with the mere holding of elections. » Read more