ATFP News Roundup October 11, 2016

News:

PM Netanyahu tells Sec. Kerry he expects the U.S. won't advance UN resolution on Israeli-Palestinian conflict before Obama leaves office. (Ha'aretz)

A Palestinian resident of eastern Jerusalem has been arrested for planning terror attacks in the Jerusalem area. (JTA\Times of Israel)

Israeli forces raided the city of Nablus and demolished the home of Amjad Aliwi, who Israeli intelligence accused of being one of the masterminds of a shooting attack on Oct. 1, 2015, which left two Israeli settlers dead. (Ma'an)

Having criticized the government five months ago for its handling of security, the hard-liner Avigdor Lieberman has not done much to reshape Israeli policies. (New York Times)

A group of Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian family and damaged their car while they were picking olives on their private land south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank on Monday. (Ma'an)

Undercover Israeli forces detained eight Palestinian children from Aida refugee camp in the southern occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem. (Ma'an)

Whoever occupies the White House next, he or she will inherit one of the most complex and brutal crises in the world: the war in Syria. (AP)

Russian Pres. Putin will not come to Paris next week after declining to meet President Francois Hollande only for talks on Syria, a source in Hollande's office said, the latest deterioration in ties between Moscow and the West. (Reuters)

A senior British lawmaker has accused Russia of targeting civilians in Syria in the same way the Nazis behaved at Guernica during the Spanish civil war of the 1930s. (Reuters)

Turkey and Russia signed an agreement on Monday for the construction of a major undersea gas pipeline and vowed to seek common ground on the war in Syria, accelerating a normalization in ties nearly a year after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane. (Reuters)

Close allies and Arab powerhouses Egypt and Saudi Arabia are having their first public spat since Egyptian Pres. Sissi took office two years ago, a quarrel over Syria that points to a wider, but mostly muted, divergence in the handling by Cairo and Riyadh of regional issues. (AP)

The spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition helping the Iraqi military defended recent pronouncements that the operation to retake Mosul is imminent, saying the advanced warning gives civilians hope they will soon be liberated and encourages defections of extremist fighters. (AP)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country is determined to take part in a possible operation to recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul despite objections from Iraq, adding to tensions between the two neighbors. (AP)

The Islamic State is releasing fewer propaganda items and has shifted its message away from that of a well-run caliphate. (New York Times)

Yemen's Houthi movement launched a ballistic missile deep into Saudi Arabia and may have also fired on a U.S. warship, two days after an apparent Saudi-led air strike killed 140 mourners at a funeral attended by powerful tribal leaders. (Reuters)

Updated guidelines published by the U.S. Treasury Department ease restrictions on foreign companies attempting to do business with Iran in what is being called a “loosening of sanctions.” (JTA)

Commentary:

Ha'aretz says precisely because Israel wants to be a home for the Jewish people demands that its leaders show empathy for the impossible situation of the Arab minority. (Ha'aretz)

Ahmad Abu Amer interviews Hamas leader Ahmad Yousef. (Al-Monitor)

Ben Caspit says Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman seems to have realized that attacking Hamas targets in retaliation for rocket fire from rogue groups could damage the organization’s efforts to contain those elements. (Al-Monitor)

Entsar Abu Jahal says a heavy budget deficit — though lighter than those of other Palestinian universities — led Birzeit University to call for a tuition hike, sparking a protest movement by the student council that closed the school's gates for a month. (Al-Monitor)

Raphael Ahren says as Turtle Bay observes its first-ever Yom Kippur, Israel’s envoy discusses his effort to bring more Judaism to the UN, clandestine meetings with Arab officials, and concerns about Palestine-related moves at the Security Council. (Times of Israel)

The New York Times says President Obama must cut off military aid to Saudi Arabia unless it ends the carnage and returns to peace talks. (New York Times)