Obama to Discuss Possible Settlement Freeze and Iran Strategy with Netanyahu
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Joyce Karam - May 18, 2009 - 12:00am

President Barack Obama is meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to discuss the prospect of an Israeli settlement freeze and ease Israeli concerns on the US strategy towards Iran.

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New Jordan Valley settlement to be built
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
May 18, 2009 - 12:00am

A new settlement will be built in the Jordan Valley for the first time in 26 years, Army Radio reported Monday morning. The new construction is set to take place in Maskiot, where 10 families evacuated from the former Gaza settlement of Shirat Hayam now live in trailers. A tender was issued recently to build 20 new residential units, and according to the report, construction was due to commence immediately. An adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the move at Maskiot proved Israel was tightening its hold on the West Bank.

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Presidential demagoguery
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by B. Michael - (Opinion) May 15, 2009 - 12:00am

During President Shimon Peres’ public relations campaign on behalf of the Netanyahu government, he sank as low as to defend the weakest national-religious-Orthodox bluff: The myth of natural growth as a pretext for settlement construction. After the American vice president refused to be impressed by this folly, our honorable president gaped at him with amazement and a sense of insult. What do they want?

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It's not up to Israelis to determine the status of Palestine
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Daoud Kuttab - (Opinion) May 14, 2009 - 12:00am

As the summit between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approaches, most of the discussion has focused on whether or not the newly elected Israeli leader will finally say that he backs a two-state solution. This is the wrong approach. Israelis should not determine the status of the Palestinian entity, nor should Palestinians have a say in what Israelis call their own state.

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Ethnically cleansing the land where Christianity was born
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Michael Jansen - May 14, 2009 - 12:00am

During his high profile visit to the Holy Land, Pope Benedict XVI preached reconciliation between Christians/Muslims and Jews. But he failed to bridge the gulf between the Vatican and Jews because he did not speak of past issues dividing Catholics and Jews. These include long-standing persecution of Jews by the church, culminating in the murder of six million by the Nazis during World War II, and the refusal of Pope Pius XII to intervene in the Nazi extermination of the Jews.

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New West Bank roads jeopardizing chances for peace accord
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel - May 14, 2009 - 12:00am

Palestinian interest in the intentions of the new Israeli government tends to focus on one small area in the West Bank, Ma'aleh Adumim and its environs, particularly the area known as E1 linking the settlement to East Jerusalem. Earlier this month Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad participated in mass Friday prayers against land expropriation in the area, and the Palestinian media was full of reports of Israeli settlement plans in Ma'aleh Adumim and E1.

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Obama to Confront Israeli Settlement Surge in Netanyahu Meeting
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bloomberg
by Jonathan Ferziger - May 14, 2009 - 12:00am

On a West Bank plateau overlooking the desert road to Jericho, crews are building cottages and paving streets for a new neighborhood in Maale Adumim, Israel’s biggest settlement. A town of 35,000 with a suburban-style shopping mall, Maale Adumim is one of about two dozen settlements Israel is expanding in the face of demands from U.S. and European leaders to halt construction. The push has helped increase the number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, where Palestinians hope to create a state, by 40 percent in the last seven years to almost 300,000.

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Ministers to Homesh evacuees: You'll return to settlement
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Erfat Weiss - May 13, 2009 - 12:00am

Four years after the IDF's unilateral disengagement from Gaza, some 1,500 people returned Tuesday night to the West Bank settlement of Homesh. During the rally, which was authorized by the IDF, former settlers read letters drafted by cabinet members especially for the event. "I want to bless the participants and support them in the realization of the Zionist way," wrote strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon of the ruling Likud party.

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Michael Oren, Ambassador, or, this is how the occupation ends
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Bradley Burston - (Opinion) May 11, 2009 - 12:00am

I was reading an Etgar Keret book of gently hallucinatory short stories when I got the news. It fit right in. The Foreign Minister, who was now Avigdor Lieberman - himself nothing if not an Etgar Keret invention - had approved the choice of Michael Oren as Israel's next ambassador to Washington.

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UN says Israel gnawing at Bethlehem sovereignty
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ali Waked - May 8, 2009 - 12:00am

Only 13% of the Bethlehem area is under the control of the Palestinian Authority – a new report released by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Thursday said. The report was issued less than a week ahead of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the Middle East. The pontiff is scheduled to travel to Bethlehem during his time in the West Bank.

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