PA optimistic about hard-line US stance ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Khaled Abu Toameh - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am Reports about growing tensions between Jerusalem and Washington over the revival of the peace process in the Middle East are being hailed by many Palestinians as a sign of US President Barack Obama's determination to change American policy toward Israel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who met with Obama in Washington last week, was quoted as saying he had emerged from the talks with a feeling that the new US administration was "extremely serious" about its intention to solve the Israeli-Arab conflict. » Read more

Obama plans to teach Netanyahu tough love ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Amos Harel - (Analysis) June 3, 2009 - 12:00am Two weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's trip to Washington, on the eve of U.S. President Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world from Cairo, matters are becoming clearer. Israeli-American relations are entering their most serious tailspin in a decade - the decade since Netanyahu's previous term as prime minister. » Read more

Key U.S. Jews wary of Netanyahu's unbending policy on settlements ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Nathan Guttman - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am For the first time in America's decades of jousting with Israel over West Bank settlements, an American president seems to have succeeded in isolating the settlements issue and disconnecting it from other elements of support for Israel. » Read more

Obama unexpectedly joins Barak-Jones meeting ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Herb Keinon, Hilary Leila Krieger - June 2, 2009 - 12:00am With the public spat between Jerusalem and Washington over construction in the settlements intensifying daily, US President Barack Obama dropped in unannounced on Defense Minister Ehud Barak while he was meeting National Security Adviser James Jones in the White House on Tuesday. » Read more

Obama to tell Israel: Form new peace policy by July ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Natasha Mozgovaya, Barak Ravid - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am United States President Barack Obama intends to give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu four to six weeks to provide an "updated position" regarding construction in West Bank settlements and the two-state principle. Obama made a surprise appearance on Tuesday at a meeting Defense Minister Ehud Barak was holding in Washington, shortly before the U.S. leader was set to leave on a five-day trip to the Middle East. » Read more

Obama on Obama ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Thomas L. Friedman - (Editorial) June 3, 2009 - 12:00am During a telephone interview Tuesday with President Obama about his speech to Arabs and Muslims in Cairo on Thursday, I got to tell the president my favorite Middle East joke. It gave him a good laugh. It goes like this: » Read more

Jordan has the jitters over Palestinian state proposal ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Suha Philip Ma’ayeh - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am When Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, described a Right-wing parliamentarian’s proposal that Jordan serve as a Palestinian state as “baseless hallucination”, it did little to quell concern here. The proposal by Arieh Eldad, a member of the Knesset, last week sent a shudder through political circles and sparked calls for Jordan to abrogate its 1994 peace treaty with Israel. » Read more

Obama Plays Down Divide With Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Helene Cooper, Alan Cowell - June 2, 2009 - 12:00am On the eve of a visit to the Middle East and Europe, President Obama on Tuesday played down a dispute with Israel over his demand for a suspension of further Jewish settlement in the West Bank but reiterated his call for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians that Israel’s hawkish leaders have not accepted. » Read more

Obama and the Arabs ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat by Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed - (Opinion) June 3, 2009 - 12:00am Either Barack Obama is the most intelligent president that has ever entered the White House, or he is trying his luck in his first presidential months by walking into the dangerous minefield, the Middle East. So far, it seems that everything he has done has been successful in a region in which hatred of everything American has become deep rooted since the era of Lyndon Johnson until today. » Read more

Obama should recall Chicago on his tour ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) June 3, 2009 - 12:00am President Barack Obama has an opportunity on his visits to several Arab countries this week to clarify American strategic aims and core policies in the Middle East. However, to do so he will have to make a few key decisions that his government has avoided to date. The most important on the conceptual level is to break free from the psychological chokehold of religion that continues to constrain American thinking vis-a-vis the Arab world and other Muslim-majority societies. » Read more