PNA in daily contact with Washington over peace talks: official
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
April 5, 2010 - 12:00am

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and the United States hold daily contact on discussions over resuming the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, a top Palestinian negotiator said on Sunday. Saeb Erekat told Voice of Palestine radio that the communication focused on freezing Israel's recent approved projects of building Jewish settlement in disputed East Jerusalem and stopping raids on PNA-controlled areas in the West Bank.

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U.S., Israel get back into the ring
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Politico
by Aaron David Miller - (Opinion) April 4, 2010 - 12:00am

Don't let this lull in the continuing brouhaha between Israel and the United States fool you. It will get noisy again. Here's why: The recent confrontation between President Barack Obama, fresh from his masterful victory on health care reform, and a more uncertain Benjamin Netanyahu reflects a far deeper problem in the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

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Netanyahu the politician shames Netanyahu the statesman
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Ari Shavit - (Opinion) April 1, 2010 - 12:00am

For the past 20 years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been a victim of injustice. When he returned from the United States at the end of the 1980s, the leftist elite treated him with boundless hostility. When he headed the opposition during the Oslo years, he was perceived as an agitator and an instigator.

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Hamas: Fatah must apologize to Palestine for failed efforts
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
March 31, 2010 - 12:00am

Fatah’s call for an escalation of peaceful resistance is an admission of the failure of the government to reach a peace deal for Palestinians, Hamas officials declared on Tuesday following a cabinet meeting in Gaza. Fatah and the Palestinian Authority must now "apologize to the Palestinians for forcing them into a failed process that lasted 20 years," a statement from the Gaza government said, citing the continued occupation of the West Bank, the siege on Gaza, and the unfaltering settlement construction in the West Bank including East Jerusalem.

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Needed: An Israeli peace plan
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) March 31, 2010 - 12:00am

While in Washington the U.S. administration is trying to reduce tensions with Israel, in Jerusalem they go out of their way to depict in war paint the demands President Barack Obama put to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Political sources in Jerusalem told Haaretz's Ari Shavit this week that hiding behind the American demands is an intention to impose a permanent settlement on the two sides in less than two years. This is being presented as a troubling change in U.S.

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US judge to reconsider ruling in terror case
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
March 30, 2010 - 12:00am

A federal appeals court said a judge must hear arguments on whether the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority can be forced to pay more than $116 million for a Hamas terrorist attack that killed a US citizen and his wife. The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals said US District Judge Ronald Lagueux in Rhode Island should have taken more factors into account before deciding last May to uphold the default judgment against the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. The court sent the case back to Lagueux for more arguments.

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Ensure Israel arms curbs, say MPs
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
March 30, 2010 - 12:00am

The UK government must ensure that military equipment sold to Israel is not used in the occupied territories, MPs have said. Ministers must learn "broader lessons" about ensuring the ban on the trade in such products for use in Gaza and the West Bank is enforced, a report adds. The MPs said it was "regrettable" that UK arms sold to Israel were "almost certainly" used in Gaza in 2008. However, they said the UK provided less than 1% of arms exported to Israel.

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'Israel to allow clothes, shoes into blockaded Gaza'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
March 29, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel will allow a shipment of clothes and shoes to be delivered to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for the first time in its almost three-year-old tight blockade of the enclave, Palestinian officials said on Monday. They said the first 10 truckloads would be arriving via the Israeli-controlled Gaza border point on Thursday. Israel is under international pressure to relax its blockade, which the United Nations says punishes Gaza's 1.5 million people over their leaders - the Islamist group Hamas, who are pledged to Israel's destruction.

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No resolution to U.S.-Israel tensions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ron Kampeas - March 29, 2010 - 12:00am

For Benjamin Netanyahu, the formula for resolving U.S.-Israeli tensions came in the form of a flow chart. The Israeli prime minister took the chart with him when he met with Obama administration officials and visited the White House last week, two weeks after Israel angered the U.S. administration by announcing plans for 1,600 new housing units in a Jewish neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem during a visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden. But the flow chart presentation didn't quite do the trick, and Netanyahu's relationship with President Obama remains on the rocks.

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Despite row, U.S. and Israel sign massive arms deal
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel - March 26, 2010 - 12:00am

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington this week absorbing the full wrath of the Obama administration, the Pentagon and Israel's defense establishment were in the process of sealing a large arms deal. According to the deal, Israel will purchase three new Hercules C-130J airplanes. The deal for the three aircrafts, designed by Lockheed Martin, is worth roughly a quarter billion dollars. Each aircraft costs $70 million. The aircrafts were manufactured specifically for Israeli needs, and include a large number of systems produced by Israel's defense industry.

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