Jewish identity and democratic values
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
(Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

Since its inception, democracy, or more specifically an elected government, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, as well as equal rights have been the cornerstone of the identity of the State of Israel. To quote the Declaration of Independence: “it [Israel] will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.”

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The "Existential Threat" to Israel Is Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post
by John Tirman - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

The nearly complete mastery of U.S. politics that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again displayed in Washington last week belies a dark reality for the Jewish State. That is the startling prospect that it has sown the seeds of its own destruction, one which will come to its ghastly fruition in a matter of a few years.

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Threatened
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New Yorker
by David Remnick - (Opinion) March 12, 2012 - 12:00am

Democracy is never fully achieved. At best, it’s an ambition, a state of becoming. In America, it took generations for blacks, women, and gays and lesbians to win the rights of citizenship—rights that, in many instances, remain incomplete. (Various contenders for the Presidency are now competing to scale back such rights.) The twenty-first century began with a fraudulent Presidential election. And this is in the luckiest of nations. Elsewhere—in Russia, in Hungary, in Zimbabwe—the fragility of democratic aspiration is a brutal fact of history.

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Israel must not bind itself to Netanyahu's vulgar rhetoric on Iran
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) March 9, 2012 - 1:00am

Anyone who cares about Israel's future could not help but feel a chill upon hearing Benjamin Netanyahu's recent speech at the AIPAC conference - if not because of the gravity of the existential threat it described, then because of its sheer vulgarity and bad taste. The prime minister, as if he were no more than a surfer leaving feedback on a website, did not hesitate to crassly compare Israel today to the situation of European Jewry during the Holocaust.

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The tragedy of success
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from United Press International (UPI)
by Morgan Strong - (Analysis) March 9, 2012 - 1:00am

BRICK, N.J., March 9 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited U.S. President Barack Obama Monday. He has tried, and failed, to convince Obama to join Israel in attacking Iran. Netanyahu says the purpose in attacking Iran is to prevent the development of nuclear weapons that Iran will use against Israel. That is sheer fantasy. Iran is very far from the development of nuclear weapons. Even if Iran were to succeed in building a primitive nuclear device, they could never match Israel's vast nuclear arsenal.

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Netanyahu, our savior the fearmonger
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) March 8, 2012 - 1:00am

If it looks like a duck (frightened), walks like a duck (spreading anxiety), quacks like a duck (disseminating dread), then it must be a duck (a frightened fearmonger). Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who quacked his fearmongering speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee convention on Tuesday, proved yet again that Israel has never had a statesman quite like him - a statesman who has built his career on being an alarmist, and who boasts an impressive record of incessant, decades-long fearmongering.

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Should Israel Accept a Nuclear Ban?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
(Opinion) March 8, 2012 - 1:00am

The strained relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu during the last few days over Israel’s threats of unilateral action against Iran has focused the world’s attention on the sensitive issue of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Would this mess be avoided, and would Israel be safer, if Netanyahu agreed to a regional nonproliferation treaty as will be discussed at a conference in Finland later this year? Or would giving up nuclear weapons be suicidal for Israel? Why Would Jerusalem Budge? By Mya Guarnieri, blogger, +927

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Obama vs. Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Charles Krauthammer - (Opinion) March 8, 2012 - 1:00am

It’s Lucy and the football, Iran-style. After ostensibly tough talk about preventing Iran from going nuclear, the Obama administration acquiesced this week to yet another round of talks with the mullahs. This, 14 months after the last group-of-six negotiations collapsed in Istanbul because of blatant Iranian stalling and unseriousness. Nonetheless, the new negotiations will be both without precondition and preceded by yet more talks to decide such trivialities as venue.

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Between Damascus and Tehran
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Uri Savir - (Opinion) March 8, 2012 - 1:00am

On February 22, a good friend of mine, the courageous Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, who reported from almost every war zone in the world to present the readers with the horror, brutality and futility of war, was killed by Syrian forces in the city of Homs.

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Israel stacks the legal deck
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by George Bisharat - (Opinion) March 7, 2012 - 1:00am

Palestinian baker and activist Khader Adnan captured headlines recently for a 66-day hunger strike that led him to the brink of death. His ordeal began in the dead of night on Dec. 17, 2011, when Israeli soldiers broke down the door of his West Bank home. Adnan was arrested before his terrified wife and daughters, and was reportedly abused verbally and physically upon detention and later in interrogation.

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