Border Control/Nothing Natural About it
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - June 2, 2009 - 12:00am

The myth of "natural population growth" doesn't impress Col. (res.) Shaul Arieli, nor do the stories about little children from good Jewish homes who are left without a kindergarten. Arieli, who in the late 1990s served as deputy military secretary to former prime minister and incumbent Defense Minister Ehud Barak, did the calculations and found that one third of Israelis living in the territories (not including East Jerusalem) settled there during the Oslo years and another third after the peace process was suspended.

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Israeli Minister's Visit Aims To Calm Settlements Dispute
Media Mention of Ghaith al-Omari In The Washington Post - June 2, 2009 - 12:00am

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak began a round of meetings with top U.S. officials yesterday in a bid to head off an increasingly sharp dispute between the United States and Israel over the expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory.

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Yesha Council: US using political terror against Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Erfat Weiss - June 2, 2009 - 12:00am

Settler leaders launched a harsh tirade against the Obama administration on Monday following the increased US pressure on Israel over the dismantling of illegal outposts and freezing of construction in the settlements. "The Americans are employing political terrorism against the State of Israel," Yesha Council Chairman Danny Dayan said. "Not only is the Obama administration renouncing the commitments made by President George W. Bush in April 2004 – it's looking as if they regret President Truman's decision on May 14th 1948 to recognize Israel's independence."

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Israeli Rejection of Settlement Freeze: Trouble for Obama
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Time
by Tim McGirk - June 1, 2009 - 12:00am

If President Barack Obama thought he could deliver the promise of a few Israeli concessions during his upcoming Cairo speech to the Muslim world, he was sorely mistaken.

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PM won't freeze settlement construction for natural growth, 'Post' learns
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Herb Keinon - June 1, 2009 - 12:00am

Israel will not freeze settlement construction for natural growth, despite intense pressure from the Obama administration to do so, The Jerusalem Post has learned. While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has indicated that he will remove illegal settlement outposts, he is determined, the Post has learned, to continue building for natural growth in settlements beyond the security barrier. In Netanyahu's view, it is further understood that there is no reason housing units cannot be built inside the major settlement blocs for people who want to move there, as well as for natural growth.

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U.S. Weighs Tactics on Israeli Settlement
Media Mention of Ghaith al-Omari In The New York Times - June 1, 2009 - 12:00am

WASHINGTON — As President Obama prepares to head to the Middle East this week, administration officials are debating how to toughen their stance against any expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The measures under discussion — all largely symbolic — include stepping back from America’s near-uniform support for Israel in the United Nations if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel does not agree to a settlement freeze, administration officials said.

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Israel and U.S. Can’t Close Split on Settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Isabel Kershner - June 1, 2009 - 12:00am

Thirty Israeli couples are on a waiting list to move into the Kfar Tapuah settlement, which teems with children on the hilltops south of Nablus. Some on the list grew up here. But there is not an apartment available for sale or rent, or even a stifling trailer to be had. If Israel built all the housing units already approved in the nation’s overall master plan for settlements, it would almost double the number of settler homes in the West Bank, according to unpublished official data provided to The New York Times.

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44% of outpost land is Palestinian-owned, Peace Now says
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Dan Izenberg, Tovah Lazaroff - May 31, 2009 - 12:00am

Peace Now on Sunday said that 44 percent of the land - 7,000 out of 16,000 dunams - on which 100 unauthorized West Bank outposts sit, is under private Palestinian ownership. Overall, it said, 80 of the outposts make some use of some private Palestinian land. In 37 cases, she added, more than 50% of the outpost makes use of Palestinian land. Another 17, she said, are totally built on Palestinian land.

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ATFP was right to keep focusing on the settlements over the past year
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ibishblog
by Hussein Ibish - (Blog) May 29, 2009 - 12:00am

Daniel Byman of Georgetown University points out in Laura’s posting mentioned below, “Over the past 15 years, settlements have gone from being seen in Washington as an irritant, to the dominant issue.” I think this is very well put. The Obama administration is absolutely right to be focusing with crystalline intensity on the question of the settlements. The settlements are a dagger aimed at the heart of peace based on two states, the only plausible option for ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

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Time for action on illegal Israeli colonies
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
(Editorial) May 25, 2009 - 12:00am

We are being assured by world leaders that they agree Israeli colony expansion must be stopped. They say the expansion of colonies in the Occupied Territories is an obstacle to peace in the Middle East and the creation of a viable independent Palestinian state. But the question is, what are they doing about it? Nothing really. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed yesterday to continue the construction of homes in Jewish colonies in the West Bank, less than a week after US President Barack Obama called on the Israeli government to halt such actions.

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