Construction to Continue in Israeli Settlements
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Howard Schneider - May 25, 2009 - 12:00am

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that construction will continue in existing Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite a call by President Obama for it to be stopped, according to an Israeli official. Netanyahu has not commented publicly on the settlement issue since returning from meetings with Obama and other U.S. officials last week.

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Netanyahu says settlements can expand
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
May 24, 2009 - 12:00am

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says settlements in the occupied West Bank will be allowed to expand despite US objections. Mr Netanyahu said no new settlements would be built, but natural growth in existing settlements should be allowed. During Mr Netanyahu's visit to the US last week, President Barack Obama told him all settlement activity must end. The US regards the Jewish settlements -home to some 280,000 Israelis - as obstacles to the peace process.

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Obama demands that Israel stop settlements. But how feasible is that?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - May 21, 2009 - 12:00am

This week, US President Barack Obama conveyed a clear message to his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu: the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank must stop. On Thursday, Israeli police evacuated an unauthorized settlement outpost of Maoz Esther, but Israeli peace activists said the move was a public relations stunt, since no settlers live there on a permanent basis.

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Clinton calls on Israel to halt 'any kind' of settlement activity
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Natasha Mozgovaya - May 21, 2009 - 12:00am

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a hard line against settlement construction in the territories Wednesday, including a call to freeze building for natural growth. Her statement came in contrast to the general terms U.S. President Barack Obama expressed about the issue to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the week. "We want to see a stop to settlement construction - additions, natural growth, any kind of settlement activity - that is what the president has called for," Clinton said in an interview with Al-Jazeera.

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Israel removes West Bank settler outpost
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Baz Ratner - May 21, 2009 - 12:00am

Israeli police broke up an unauthorized settler outpost in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, bulldozing makeshift cabins, police said. About 40 members of paramilitary border police evacuated five settler families from a hilltop camp called Maoz Esther where they were living in wooden huts with sheet metal roofs. The camp was about 300 meters from the Jewish settlement of Kokhav Hashahar, northeast of the West Bank city of Ramallah.

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A friend of Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - (Opinion) May 21, 2009 - 12:00am

It's already clear: the U.S. president is a great friend of Israel. If Barack Obama continues what he started this week, he might prove to be the friendliest president to Israel ever. Richard Nixon saved Israel from the Arab states in 1973, and Obama is about to save Israel from itself. Nixon sent us arms and ammunition at a critical time, and Obama is sending us, at a time no less critical, the substance of a complete peace plan, a plan that would save Israel.

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"Fixation on two-state solution is childish"
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Roni Sofer - May 21, 2009 - 12:00am

"This idea of two states for two peoples is a stupid and childish solution to a very complex problem," senior members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu staff said on Wednesday as the entourage made its way back to Israel from Washington. They were determined to emphasize that Israel would continue to build in the larger settlement blocs and Jerusalem despite US President Barack Obama's resolute opposition.

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Yesha heads, Barak meet on settlement construction
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Erfat Weiss - May 20, 2009 - 12:00am

Heads of the Yesha Council met with Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday to discuss mitigations for the Palestinians and the freezing of construction in settlements. During the meeting Barak said that illegal outposts must be evacuated. "If this is not done trough negotiations, it will be done with swift and firm enforcement," he stated. The defense minister stressed that "law enforcement cannot be compromised. A sovereign, viable state must enforce the law and exercise its authority over its citizens."

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Palestinians say were promised Jerusalem
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ali Waked - May 20, 2009 - 12:00am

US President Barack Obama's new peace plan for the Middle East continues to unravel, ahead of it official presentation in Cairo, on June 4. Official Palestinian Authority sources told Ynet Wednesday that following Jordan's King Abdullah's visit to Washington, as well as other visits to the US capital, they were given the impression that any new American peace plan would call for establishing a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

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Don't do us any favors
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Issa Amro - (Opinion) May 20, 2009 - 12:00am

I am unfamiliar with any location in Israel or in the occupied territories where a Jew cannot travel to his own home in his car. Yet for us, the Palestinians in Hebron, this is the norm. Since 2001, the main street in Hebron's Wadi Hassan, which you refer to as the Zion Route, has been closed off to the movement of Palestinian vehicles. The street is only open to Israelis, even though all its residents are Palestinian. Not even one Jew resides on this street.

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