Israel releases tentative Obama schedule
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
March 11, 2013 - 12:00am

Israel released a tentative itinerary for President Obama's visit to Israel and the West Bank. The March 20-22 visit, according to the schedule released Monday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, will include visits to Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, as well as visits to the graves in Jerusalem of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, and Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist.

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Is Obama Bringing a Peace Plan?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Linda Gradstein - March 11, 2013 - 12:00am

Over and over, American officials insist that President Obama has no new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan hidden in his pocket, ready to be whipped out during next week’s meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. But Palestinians hope and Israelis fear that he will try to restart a peace process that has been moribund for the past four years.

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Obama's new approach to Mideast peace: Israel and Palestinians must lead, not the U.S.
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - (Opinion) March 10, 2013 - 1:00am

For the past month the White House has been lowering expectations regarding U.S. President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah.

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Palestinians deserve justice, not apathy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by Adel Safty - (Opinion) March 10, 2013 - 1:00am

John Kerry, the former presidential candidate and the veteran chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has just returned from his first trip to Europe and the Middle East as secretary of state. At the press conference with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, Kerry gave the impression that the Middle East did not figure prominently in his discussion with Hague. In his opening statement Hague said: “Top of our agenda was the Middle East, including the importance we both attach to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…”

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An Ode to Joy: President Obama has no peace plan!
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Chemi Shalev - (Opinion) March 10, 2013 - 1:00am

The news that President Obama has no intention of presenting a new peace plan on his upcoming visit to Israel was greeted by a collective sigh of relief that was so pronounced that it sounded like a giant roar of approval. Hallelujah, Israel is saved. Just in time for Passover, as usual.

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Progress or explosion
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Emanuel Rosen - (Opinion) March 10, 2013 - 1:00am

The International Monetary Fund published a report last week in praise of the Steinitz-Fayyad agreement, which, according to the IMF's experts, is the most efficient way to reinforce the economic relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, for the benefit of both sides.

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Senate bill would exempt Israel from visa waiver requirements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
March 10, 2013 - 1:00am

 The Senate version of a bill that would enhance the U.S.-Israel relationship exempts Israel from some requirements in order to allow it to join a visa waiver program.   The bill, introduced in time for last week's American Israel Public Affairs Committee annual policy conference, mandates the inclusion of Israel in a program that allows citizens of designated countries to enter the United States without a prearranged visa.

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The Region: Obama: Bad president, good for Israel?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Barry Rubin - (Opinion) March 10, 2013 - 1:00am

I have just returned from briefing a high-ranking official of country X on the Middle East. We kept coming back to a vital theme: the incredibly shrinking power of the United States. Try to explain American behavior to neutral, open-minded third parties for whom US policy activities have become just plain bizarre! I have just published an article about how terrorists, including the murderers of four American officials in Benghazi, are literally laughing at the United States and its inability (or unwillingness) to do anything effective to defend its interests.

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AIPAC Tries to Brand Israel as Liberal Cause
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Guttman - (Opinion) March 10, 2013 - 1:00am

After many years of outreach to conservative evangelicals, the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, facing a liberal ascendance, is now striving to make the case for Israel as a cause for progressives. At the recent annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, advocates of the organization explored strategies for capturing this constituency, largely by looking for ways, as Israeli diplomats put it, of presenting “Israel beyond the conflict” with the Palestinians.

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Israeli-Palestinian peace - the hidden agenda item
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Hill
by Alan Elsner - (Opinion) March 8, 2013 - 1:00am

This week, some 13,000 pro-Israel advocates in town to attend the annual AIPAC policy conference fanned out across Capitol Hill to lobby their congressional representatives to tighten sanctions against Iran and designate Israel as a “major strategic partner” of the United States. Curiously missing from the list was any mention of Israeli-Palestinian peace, which is a vital interest for the United States, but more importantly the single most important guarantor of Israel’s future as a democratic Jewish state.

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