Daniel Terris says personal attacks on Judge Goldstone don't help Israel. Israeli peace activists promote new flag. Palestinians deny Pres. Abbas' health is failing. The Israeli military will investigate reports of the use of human shields. The PA pledges to stop Palestinians working in settlement construction. Special Envoy Mitchell is returning to the region. Projectiles fired toward Israel land in Jordan. The Israeli military arrests 24 Palestinians in the West Bank, expels a former prisoner to Gaza. PM Fayyad vows to step up popular resistance. NSA Jones warns lack of peace is strengthening Iran. Akiva Eldar says Pres. Obama has offered PM Netanyahu a gentleman's agreement on Jerusalem, but Israel says settlement activity will continue anyway. Settlers promote tourism in the occupied territories. WJC President Ron Lauder again criticizes Pres. Obama, and Israeli extremists burn the President in effigy. Protesters condemn an attack on a Palestinian woman in Jaffa. Jewish Americans worry about accusations of "dual loyalty." Daoud Kuttab says the US has determined that Israel is primarily to blame for the Mideast peace impasse.

Trying to effect change in Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Daoud Kuttab - (Opinion) April 22, 2010 - 12:00am

An analysis of the most recent ABC TV interview with former US president Bill Clinton reveals a fascinating development in Washington, DC. The Obama administration has concluded who the culprit is in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and it is not the Arab side. When asked by reporter Jack Tapper about US plans for the Middle East conflict, the former US president stated that Washington plans to "do something to deprive both sides of any excuse not to engage in serious negotiations".

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Strain in U.S.-Israel Ties Spurs Anxiety About ‘Dual Loyalty’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Gal Beckerman - (Opinion) April 21, 2010 - 12:00am

Dual loyalty is an old and nefarious accusation. It has dogged Jews for centuries in any land where they settled and began to feel comfortable — the allegation that their allegiance is to their tribe first and not to their nation. America has been a haven precisely because the moments when this fear has swelled up have been few and far between. Even the existence of Israel, a country with its own set of national interests and its own wars and ways of dealing with them, has not created much of an issue for those American Jews who see themselves as both Zionists and patriots.

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Protest rally against ‘settler provocation’ in Jaffa
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Benjamin L. Hartman - April 22, 2010 - 12:00am

Dozens of activists and residents held a rally in Jaffa’s Ajami neighborhood on Wednesday, to protest what organizers called “a series of provocations from settlers active in Jaffa,” following the alleged attack of an elderly neighborhood woman by settlers three days earlier. Wednesday’s rally, which was held in front of the house organizers say was infiltrated by a group of settlers on Sunday, included speeches by Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Raed Salah and a number of community organizers from Jaffa.

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Rightists: Burn effigies of Obama
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
April 22, 2010 - 12:00am

Every year, Israeli children gather around bonfires on the Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer and burn the effigies of the enemies of the Jewish people. Perennial favorites in that category include the likes of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Now, a Jewish rightist group wants to add US President Barack Obama to that list. Bentzi Gupshtain, a member of the outlawed Kahane Chai (Kach) party, said his organization is distributing hundreds of effigies of the US president for children to set fire to on Lag BaOmer May 2nd.

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Round 2: Lauder vs. Obama
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
April 21, 2010 - 12:00am

A week after publishing an open letter in which he criticized US President Barack Obama, Ron Lauder on Wednesday continued to slam the American president and his Middle East policies. In an interview with the German Der Spiegel, Lauder - who serves as president of the World Jewish Congress and is considered a close associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - said that Washington's criticism of Israel was "disproportionate." "The Obama administration is blaming Israel for the stalling peace process, but it is in fact the Palestinians which are opposed to negotiations," he said.

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Settlers set up West Bank tourism ventures
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Karni Eldad - April 22, 2010 - 12:00am

"Just as the Golan Heights became part of the Israeli consensus because people came and vacationed and saw that it was good, it was lovely, it was fun, and it would be a shame to give it to the Arabs, the same thing could happen in Samaria," says Doron Nir Zvi, who lives in the unauthorized outpost of Yad Yair, in northern Samaria. He and his family run a restaurant and rent out a luxury vacation cabin (called a "zimmer" in Israel) at the outpost, and even have a swimming pool. "I don't talk about the land of our forefathers and ideology. I direct myself toward it. Toward love.

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Obama offered Netanyahu a gentlemen's agreement on Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - April 22, 2010 - 12:00am

If the Independence Day speeches delivered this week by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin were any indication, Jerusalem Day came early this year. As they took the podium to vow that "united Jerusalem" would never be divided, both were no doubt aware that President Barack Obama's adviser, Dan Shapiro, was making his way to the region.

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Palestinians to step up "Popular Resistance" against Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
April 21, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian officials, Arab, Israeli and foreign members of international solidarity movements on Wednesday announced that they would step up "Popular resistance " to challenge the Israeli settlement's expansion and the construction of the West Bank Separation Wall. The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told an international conference held in the village of Bel 'ein, west of Ramallah in the West Bank, that the Palestinians will keep their "popular resistance as part of a step towards establishing their future independent Palestinian state."

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Israel evicts freed Palestinian prisoner from West Bank to Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
April 22, 2010 - 12:00am

The Israeli army has on Wednesday expelled a freed Palestinian prisoner from the West Bank to Gaza Strip, an official said. Nash'at al-Waheidi, in charge of public relations in the Gaza- based Palestinian Prisoners' Committee, said in a press statement that Israel started to implement its military order of evictions. Last week, the Israeli Ha'aretz Daily revealed that the Israeli army had issued an order to expel thousands of Palestinians, who are not basically registered as West Bank residents, from the territory to the Gaza Strip.

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