As U.S. Presses Israel, EU May Join Fray
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Adam Entous - June 5, 2009 - 12:00am

A day after President Barack Obama told Israel its key ally would no longer tolerate building settlements in the West Bank, the European Union was considering using its trade clout to bolster U.S. pressure, diplomats said. The EU is the Jewish state's biggest trading partner and one option it may have is to crack down on fruit, vegetables, olive oil and other farm produce grown by Israeli settlers on occupied Palestinian land. Some European governments have long suspected such products are entering the EU at low import tariffs reserved for output labeled as coming from Israel proper.

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Obama Pins Mideast Hope on Limiting Settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - (Analysis) June 5, 2009 - 12:00am

Iran seems to be hurtling toward nuclear weapons capacity, Hezbollah could win Sunday’s election in Lebanon and Hamas is smuggling long-range rockets into Gaza again. So why is President Obama focusing such attention on the building of homes by Israeli Jews in the West Bank?

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Obama Tugs at the Settlement Knot
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by David Ignatius - (Editorial) June 4, 2009 - 12:00am

By traveling to the heart of the Arab world today, President Obama is putting himself at a crossroads: He is raising expectations that America can coax Israel and the Arabs toward a comprehensive peace that has eluded them for more than 40 years. But can Obama deliver?

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Some in Congress uneasy with Obama's Mideast policy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Richard Boudreaux, Paul Richter - June 4, 2009 - 12:00am

Reporting from Washington and Jerusalem -- Key U.S. lawmakers whose support is crucial to the Obama administration's Middle East peace effort are showing signs of unease with the administration's aggressive approach to Israel. Though they strongly support the peace initiative, many say they want the White House to back off its demand that the Israeli government halt all growth in Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory. Some members of Congress are also unhappy that the Obama administration has gone public in its dispute with Israel.

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‘Preparing to put pressure on’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Vita Bekker - June 4, 2009 - 12:00am

While Palestinians expressed cautious optimism yesterday towards the reaffirmed commitment of Barack Obama to Palestinian statehood and his rejection of Jewish settlement expansion, Israel’s new Right-wing government reacted coolly to the US president’s pledge.

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Eli Yishai vows to help expand settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Gil Hoffman - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am

On the eve of US President Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, Interior Minister Eli Yishai announced Wednesday that he will respond to Obama's outreach to the Arabs by expanding West Bank settlements. In a meeting with leaders of Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria at his Jerusalem office, the Shas chairman said he invited them while Obama was in the region, because the US president's speech reinforced the need to consolidate Israeli society.

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Pollsters Find Israeli Public Less Supportive Of Settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Nathan Jeffay - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am

In previous decades, an American president who pressured Israel to freeze settlement growth, as President Obama has done, would have riled large sections of Israel’s Jewish population. But public sympathy for settlers and the settlements is currently at an all-time low, adding a new dimension to the sometimes tense relationship between Washington and Jerusalem.

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Israelis Say Bush Agreed to West Bank Growth
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am

Senior Israeli officials accused President Obama on Wednesday of failing to acknowledge what they called clear understandings with the Bush administration that allowed Israel to build West Bank settlement housing within certain guidelines while still publicly claiming to honor a settlement “freeze.”

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Ignore the Theatrics, Bibi Just Wants To Build
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Gershom Gorenberg - (Opinion) June 3, 2009 - 12:00am

The show goes on. As I write, a radio newscaster is repeating an item about the evacuation of an illegal settlement outpost in the West Bank: At Nahalat Yosef, near Nablus, the army demolished two makeshift mobile homes and removed a third, thereby erasing the outpost. Settler leaders promised to rebuild it. Judging from past experience, the promise will be kept.

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Growth and narratives, natural and unnatural
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ron Kampeas - (Blog) June 2, 2009 - 12:00am

There are some hypocrisies so grand, so utterly defiant of awareness of the world and of oneself, that it takes days -- sometimes weeks -- for we mere mortals even to discern them. That's my excuse anyway. I've been following the issue of "natural growth" in the settlements with mixed feelings: I know people who live in the settlements, and whatever one thinks of their politics (and not all of them necessarily hew to a rigid political view) squeezing them out because they want to add a room for a new baby seems unconscionable.

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