June 17th

Israel's West Bank phone delay hurts growth: Blair ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Mohammed Assadi - June 17, 2009 - 12:00am Israel's delay in releasing frequencies for a second West Bank mobile phone network is holding up economic development, Middle East envoy Tony Blair said on Tuesday. Blair said if Israel released frequencies for Wataniya Palestine mobile, it would create thousands of new jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. "I hope that we can get this moved satisfactorily in the next few weeks," he told Reuters in an interview. "But again it has been very frustrating because we have an agreement, we secured the agreement. All we need is the frequency released." » Read more

How the Palestinians should respond to Netanyahu ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy by Hussein Ibish - (Analysis) June 16, 2009 - 12:00am The response from Palestinian and Arab leaders to Benjamin Netanyahu's defiant foreign policy speech last Sunday has so far consisted mainly of throwing up their hands in despair. While understandable given the prime minister's intransigence on Israel's prior commitment to a complete settlement freeze and other key issues, this approach is not likely to accomplish very much. » Read more

How the Palestinians should respond to Netanyahu ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) June 16, 2009 - 12:00am The response from Palestinian and Arab leaders to Benjamin Netanyahu's defiant foreign policy speech last Sunday has so far consisted mainly of throwing up their hands in despair. While understandable given the prime minister's intransigence on Israel's prior commitment to a complete settlement freeze and other key issues, this approach is not likely to accomplish very much. » Read more

June 16th

E.U. Defers Upgrade Of Israel Trade Ties ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Howard Schneider - June 16, 2009 - 12:00am European Union officials said Monday that they would delay any improvement in trade relations with Israel after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu offered conditional support for a Palestinian state in an address Sunday night but did not declare a freeze on Israeli settlements. » Read more

Poll Shows Dip in American Voters’ Supporting Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward June 16, 2009 - 12:00am American voters’ support for Israel has dropped 20 percent in the past nine months, a new survey found. Some 49 percent of American voters call themselves supporters of Israel, down from 69 percent last September, according to the poll conducted for The Israel Project. The number of voters who called themselves undecided rose during that same period, and the number of Palestinian supporters remained steady at 7 percent. The number of Israel supporters hit a low of 38 percent immediately following the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, with an equal rise in undecided voters. » Read more

U.S. could yield on settlement freeze, says government source ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Barak Ravid - June 16, 2009 - 12:00am The U.S. administration is prepared to show flexibility on construction in West Bank settlements, a government source in Jerusalem says. The Americans will apparently not demand a full freeze on construction, but will agree that projects now underway can be completed, Israeli officials say. A week from Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to meet with U.S. special envoy George Mitchell in Paris to discuss the details. » Read more

Blair: Don't Rule Out Right Of Return ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews June 16, 2009 - 12:00am The return of Palestinian refugees to Israel should not be ruled out as a subject for negotiation, Tony Blair said in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent policy speech. In his speech at Bar-Ilan University on Sunday, Netanyahu endorsed the concept of a demilitarized Palestinian state for the first time, but he attached new strict conditions, including a demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state before negotiations even begin. » Read more

Israel: one step forward, two steps back ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National (Editorial) June 16, 2009 - 12:00am Benjamin Netanyahu came within a hair’s breadth of endorsing the two-state solution and a sovereign Palestinian state. In a speech on Sunday night, he outlined what he called his “vision for peace”. It came as the Israeli prime minister was under immense pressure from the United States to freeze settlements and accept a two-state solution for Israel-Palestine. Yet Mr Netanyahu refused to do the former and paid only lip service to the latter. » Read more

Netanyahu's speech badly received across the Middle East ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Paul Woodward - June 16, 2009 - 12:00am “The truth is that in the area of our homeland, in the heart of our Jewish Homeland, now lives a large population of Palestinians. We do not want to rule over them. We do not want to run their lives. We do not want to force our flag and our culture on them. In my vision of peace, there are two free peoples living side by side in this small land, with good neighbourly relations and mutual respect, each with its flag, anthem and government, with neither one threatening its neighbour’s security and existence,” said the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. » Read more

Analysis: Why was PA reaction to Netanyahu's speech so harsh? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Khaled Abu Toameh - (Analysis) June 16, 2009 - 12:00am The Palestinian Authority leadership's hysterical, hasty and clearly miscalculated response to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech at Bar-Ilan University on Sunday night is likely to boomerang because it makes the Palestinians appear as "peace rejectionists." The PA, perhaps, has every right to be angry with Netanyahu's statements. However, its leaders should have been more careful in choosing the right words to express their sentiments. » Read more