Obama sets out guarantees to Netanyahu for 60-day freeze extension
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ron Kampeas - September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

The Obama administration reportedly is promising Israel broad security and diplomatic guarantees in exchange for extending a settlement moratorium by 60 days. According to an article posted Wednesday evening by David Makovsky, a senior analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a letter from President Obama to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledges that the United States will: *Not ask for additional extensions on the partial ban on settlement building, which expired Sunday;

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David Grossman, a Man Who Owns Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Leonard Fein - (Opinion) September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

In his remarkable recent New Yorker profile of the Israeli writer David Grossman, George Packer observes that the heroine of Grossman’s new novel “embraces the breadth of Israel’s tragedy, a country that can take nothing for granted, not even its own existence.” (The novel, “To the End of the Land,” is newly available in English.) Yet Packer’s lengthy article, though tinged with tragedy to be sure, is colored as well by resolve, even triumph. For the Grossman he portrays is a steadfast Israeli patriot, a man who owns Israel.

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Palestinian eviction threat comes at a sensitive moment
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

A threat to evict about three dozen Palestinians this week from their East Jerusalem homes to allow Jewish landowners to build housing in an Arab-dominated neighborhood is posing the latest threat to fragile Mideast peace talks. The ruling in the long-running dispute comes at a particularly sensitive time, as Israel faces mounting criticism for its decision to resume settlement construction in the West Bank after a 10-month moratorium. U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell arrived in Israel on Tuesday in a diplomatic bid to keep Palestinians from quitting the talks in protest.

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Netanyahu to US: I'm leading Israel's policy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Atilla Somfalvi - September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Wednesday with US special envoy George Mitchell, who arrived in Israel in a bid to save the peace talks following the end of the settlement construction freeze. The two officials were forced to deal with another issue – Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's UN General Assembly address on Tuesday, in which he mentioned his land exchange plan and said that it could "take decades" to reach a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians.

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Lieberman is making a liar out of Netanyahu
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Aluf Benn - (Opinion) September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel showed the international community on Tuesday that the country is ruled by a circus, not a responsible government with a policy. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the representatives of the world's nations from the UN podium that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is spreading illusions and silly talk about peace. There is no chance for a permanent settlement for a generation, Lieberman said, and it is necessary to "exchange" populated areas and adjust the state to its correct size.

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Confessions of an Israeli anti-settler bigot
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Bradley Burston - (Blog) September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

I needed to hear it. Even though I knew that when I did, I'd be livid. The freeze still had eight hours to run, but in a small settlement outside the shinbone-in-the-throat settler city of Ariel, it was time to humiliate the president of the United States. I needed to hear it. I turned up the car radio. A drainage ditch of a voice. "From this stage I turn to Hussein Obama and tell him, 'The Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel.'"

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Negotiating Until the End
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Ali Ibrahim - (Opinion) September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is in a difficult position. The Palestinian negotiators linked the continuation of direction negotiations with Israel – which were launched with great difficulty and are still at an early stage – with an extension to the partial freeze on settlement construction; something that has not materialized from the Israeli side, despite international pressure, in particular from Washington, who are sponsoring the current negotiations.

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Focus on the far horizon of settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Rami Khouri - September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

The problem with the immediate controversy over whether or not Israel will continue to suspend most expansion of its Jewish settlements in occupied Arab land is that it is both tangential and central to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This means that the principal actors – especially Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas – have much flexibility to hold their ground or make concessions, because in either case they can claim to be winners.

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The unorthodox Israeli settlement leader - who isn't even a settler
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - September 29, 2010 - 12:00am

It's no surprise that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision not to extend the Israeli settlement freeze this week was due in large part to pressure from settlers. But the man some credit as the driving force behind Mr. Netanyahu's controversial move is not the stereotypical settler. In fact, Naftali Bennett – director general of the umbrella settler leadership group, the Yesha Council – is not even a settler at all.

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World leaders criticize Israel for refusing to extend West Bank construction moratorium
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - September 28, 2010 - 12:00am

Reporting from Jerusalem — World leaders Monday criticized Israel's refusal to extend its construction moratorium on the West Bank even after Palestinians threatened to quit Mideast peace talks, but they vowed to prevent the stalled negotiations from collapsing.

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