The summer of 2012
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Uri Savir - (Opinion) April 11, 2012 - 12:00am

Some time ago we saw in the brilliant television satire, Eretz Nehederet, Israelis giving up on all their summer plans, “because of that thing that will happen with Iran this summer.” “Can I give you a delayed check for this summer?” says the customer. “No, of course not,” says the shopkeeper. “Don’t you know what will happen this summer? That thing with Iran.” “Oh yes, I forgot it’s this summer!” he replies, and pays immediately.

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Günter Grass, Israel and the crime of poetry
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Jazeera English
by Hamid Dabashi - (Opinion) April 10, 2012 - 12:00am

New York, NY - On Wednesday, April 4, 2012, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung published Nobel laureate Günter Grass’ poem (the German original) that has created quite a stir not only in Germany, Israel and Iran, but also across the globe. As a result Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai has banned the Nobel laureate from entering Israel.

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Israel's Less-Than-Resilient Democracy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Beast
by Lara Friedman - (Opinion) April 10, 2012 - 12:00am

According to the latest article by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, Israeli democracy is “more robust and effervescent than ever.” Reading his lengthy piece, a variation on Queen Gertrude’s quip comes to mind: “The Ambassador doth protest too much, methinks.” Oren’s most breathtaking assertion is that the occupation is simply an “anomaly,” akin to anomalies like the taxation and voting status of Americans living in Washington, DC, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands.

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A Textbook Case for the Clash Of World Views in Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'ariv
by Omri Meniv - (Opinion) April 10, 2012 - 12:00am

The struggle over the nature of civics studies in Israeli schools has reached a new low: the Civil Service Commission is now conducting an inquiry into the actions of Civic Education Inspector Adar Cohen. The issue under examination is whether he allegedly committed ethical offenses, including changing the minutes of the Civics Professional Committee.

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Israel's poetry critics
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
(Editorial) April 10, 2012 - 12:00am

The people in Israel and Germany who are most outraged by Nobel Prize-winning author Gunter Grass' latest work have one thing in common: They think it's ridiculous, and possibly anti-Semitic, for Grass to assert a moral equivalency between Israel and Iran. Yet by overreacting to Grass' criticism, Israeli officials are acting like, well, Iranians.

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Israeli Justice Ministry bypassing the High Court
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) April 10, 2012 - 12:00am

Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman has pulled out an old-new way to bypass the High Court of Justice. This happened just after the court ruled unconstitutional the law that lets yeshiva students defer army service. This ruling is threatening the stability of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition. Now the Justice Ministry has published a preliminary draft of a bill that would become the Basic Law on Legislation. It would allow the Knesset, with the support of at least 65 MKs, to pass a law that has been struck down by the High Court.

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For fear of a political turnaround, Israel's government is destroying democracy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Sefi Rachlevsky - (Opinion) April 10, 2012 - 12:00am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is working to stamp out judicial review in order to perpetuate his governing coalition. Unlike most people on the center-left, the right-wing coalition knows that the most significant political differences are not that those that divide individual parties but those that divide the two major blocs: the right wing and the non-right.

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Israel endangers region by willfully courting trouble
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Linda Heard - (Opinion) April 10, 2012 - 12:00am

The Middle East is evolving into an ever more dangerous neighborhood largely due to Israel’s increasing belligerence and intransigence. Rather than attempt to mend diplomatic fences with its former “friends” Egypt and Turkey it is using its cash and US leverage to make new regional alliances. Israel is also flexing its muscles and openly making threats toward Iran, Lebanon and Egypt.

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Israel-Iran History, Holocaust Perverted in Grass’s Poem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bloomberg
by Jeffrey Goldberg - (Opinion) April 9, 2012 - 12:00am

Guenter Grass, the German writer and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, brought forth last week an odious little poem that focuses on the threat to world peace posed by the Jewish state, and congratulates its author for the courage to point out this truth. The poem, published in the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung and elsewhere, was titled “What Must Be Said,” which is quite a vainglorious title. There is very little in the world that is safer (or less novel) than criticizing Israel in a European newspaper. About Jeffrey Goldberg

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Israel has reacted with hysteria over Gunter Grass
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) April 9, 2012 - 12:00am

Author Gunter Grass sees the State of Israel as a threat to world peace. He believes Israel is armed with nuclear weapons, and is threatening Iran as the Islamic Republic looks to obtain a nuclear arsenal. After the poem he published to this effect in the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung last week drew extensive criticism, he asked to distinguish between the state and its government. It's not Israel that worries him, he said, but the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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