Middle East News: World Press Roundup

President Obama arrives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to kick off his highly anticipated Mideast tour (1) (10) (11). Speculation continues regarding the issue of a potential Israeli settlement freeze (3) (4) (5). Before leaving for the Mideast, President Obama joins a White House meeting between National Security Advisor Jim Jones and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak (15). Israeli police remove a West Bank settler outpost and two roadblocks in Ramallah (17).

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Arab States Cool to Obama Pleas for Peace Gesture ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Michael Slackman - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am President Obama starts his much anticipated Middle East tour on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia, where he is expected to press the Arab nations to offer a gesture to the Israelis to entice them to accelerate the peace process. » Read more

Obama Plays Down Divide With Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Helene Cooper, Alan Cowell - June 2, 2009 - 12:00am On the eve of a visit to the Middle East and Europe, President Obama on Tuesday played down a dispute with Israel over his demand for a suspension of further Jewish settlement in the West Bank but reiterated his call for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians that Israel’s hawkish leaders have not accepted. » Read more

Groups silent in face of Obama calls for settlement freeze ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) by Eric Fingerhut - June 2, 2009 - 12:00am Even as it publicly stakes out a hard-line position against Israeli settlement expansion, the Obama administration is avoiding serious criticism from most U.S. Jewish groups and pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers. Key pro-Israel Jewish Democrats have backed the president on the importance of an Israeli settlement freeze while also suggesting there is room for a compromise between the Netanyahu government and the White House. » Read more

US-Israeli relationship takes new direction ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News by Jeffrey Heller - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am After George W. Bush’s terms of endearment for Israel — a country he once described as a “light unto nations” — a different terminology is being used to describe its cloudy relationship with his successor, Barack Obama. At odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Palestinian statehood and Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the new US president will try to patch ties with the Muslim world in an address he will deliver in Egypt tomorrow. » Read more

Israelis growing increasingly anxious about Obama policies ATFP World Press Roundup Article from McClatchy News by Cliff Churgin - June 2, 2009 - 12:00am Sirens blared across Israel on Tuesday as the nation carried out its biggest-ever "doomsday" drill meant to simulate a catastrophic attack. The faux fears, however, were overshadowed by deepening anxiety in Jerusalem that Israel is heading for an unavoidable political showdown with President Barack Obama over the center-right government's refusal to stop building Jewish homes in the predominantly Palestinian West Bank. Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's largest daily newspaper, carried a front-page story Tuesday bluntly titled: "The American Threat." » Read more

This is Zionism? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Week by Sidney Schwarz - (Opinion) June 3, 2009 - 12:00am It had been at least 20 years since I was in New York for a Salute to Israel Parade. But it was a happy coincidence. I was scheduled to be in New York on Monday for a meeting of the board of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America. I came into the city a day early with my wife and 20 year old daughter to enjoy the parade. My daughter marched with a delegation from the University of Maryland Hillel. My wife and I enjoyed being part of the crowd, hearing the Israeli music and watching the floats and delegations of students from synagogues and schools from all around the area. » Read more

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. » Read more

Obama should recall Chicago on his tour ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star by Rami Khouri - (Opinion) June 3, 2009 - 12:00am President Barack Obama has an opportunity on his visits to several Arab countries this week to clarify American strategic aims and core policies in the Middle East. However, to do so he will have to make a few key decisions that his government has avoided to date. The most important on the conceptual level is to break free from the psychological chokehold of religion that continues to constrain American thinking vis-a-vis the Arab world and other Muslim-majority societies. » Read more

Obama and the Arabs ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat by Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed - (Opinion) June 3, 2009 - 12:00am Either Barack Obama is the most intelligent president that has ever entered the White House, or he is trying his luck in his first presidential months by walking into the dangerous minefield, the Middle East. So far, it seems that everything he has done has been successful in a region in which hatred of everything American has become deep rooted since the era of Lyndon Johnson until today. » Read more

Jordan has the jitters over Palestinian state proposal ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Suha Philip Ma’ayeh - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am When Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, described a Right-wing parliamentarian’s proposal that Jordan serve as a Palestinian state as “baseless hallucination”, it did little to quell concern here. The proposal by Arieh Eldad, a member of the Knesset, last week sent a shudder through political circles and sparked calls for Jordan to abrogate its 1994 peace treaty with Israel. » Read more

Much Awaited Visit ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times (Opinion) June 3, 2009 - 12:00am US President Barack Obama’s Middle East visit is certain to stir interest in many quarters, and definitely much more of it in this conflict-ridden part of the world. His much-anticipated speech in Cairo has been prefigured by laymen and pundits alike. The president, they say, will announce his administration’s idea on how the Arab-Israeli conflict can be managed to finally bring about peace in the region and put an end to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian problem. » Read more

Obama to tell Israel: Form new peace policy by July ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Natasha Mozgovaya, Barak Ravid - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am United States President Barack Obama intends to give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu four to six weeks to provide an "updated position" regarding construction in West Bank settlements and the two-state principle. Obama made a surprise appearance on Tuesday at a meeting Defense Minister Ehud Barak was holding in Washington, shortly before the U.S. leader was set to leave on a five-day trip to the Middle East. » Read more

Key U.S. Jews wary of Netanyahu's unbending policy on settlements ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Nathan Guttman - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am For the first time in America's decades of jousting with Israel over West Bank settlements, an American president seems to have succeeded in isolating the settlements issue and disconnecting it from other elements of support for Israel. » Read more

Obama plans to teach Netanyahu tough love ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Amos Harel - (Analysis) June 3, 2009 - 12:00am Two weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's trip to Washington, on the eve of U.S. President Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world from Cairo, matters are becoming clearer. Israeli-American relations are entering their most serious tailspin in a decade - the decade since Netanyahu's previous term as prime minister. » Read more

Obama unexpectedly joins Barak-Jones meeting ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Herb Keinon, Hilary Leila Krieger - June 2, 2009 - 12:00am With the public spat between Jerusalem and Washington over construction in the settlements intensifying daily, US President Barack Obama dropped in unannounced on Defense Minister Ehud Barak while he was meeting National Security Adviser James Jones in the White House on Tuesday. » Read more

PA optimistic about hard-line US stance ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post by Khaled Abu Toameh - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am Reports about growing tensions between Jerusalem and Washington over the revival of the peace process in the Middle East are being hailed by many Palestinians as a sign of US President Barack Obama's determination to change American policy toward Israel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who met with Obama in Washington last week, was quoted as saying he had emerged from the talks with a feeling that the new US administration was "extremely serious" about its intention to solve the Israeli-Arab conflict. » Read more

West Bank outpost, roadblocks removed ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Hanan Greenberg - June 3, 2009 - 12:00am Illegal West Bank outposts are still up and running despite the American demand, but on Wednesday morning the security forces once again destroyed several improvised buildings in the Binyamin area. Also Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces removed two roadblocks in the Ramallah area in a bid to ease the restrictions on the Palestinian population, and issued an order preventing left-wing activists from entering sensitive areas in checkpoints near Nablus. » Read more

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